Meteor at UDSC

[MarkS]

We saw quite a number of meteors at UDSC - one of them passed through the corner an exposure I was taking of M33.

Modified Canon EOS350D on Celestron C11 with F6.3 reducer and CLS filter.  This is a crop of the full sized image:



The coloured dots are hot pixels on the CCD.

Mark

[Daniel]

wow, a green one, I've only ever seen a green meteor once, and that was over abbey wood in the day, was a slow moving fireball, could even see smoke coming off of it.

Daniel
:O)

[Carole]

Wow, that's impressive Mark.  I saw a green meteor when we were at COAA during the perseids meteor shower.

Carole

[Whitters]

Fantastic! Look at the structure you have picked up in it too. You can see where bits are breaking off as it burns up. Worth sending in to one of the mags.

[Tony G]

Forget 'Jamie and his Magic Torch', we have 'Mark and his Lucky Camera'

I was going to say 'I just don't know how you do it' but realise that you don't sleep, which I suppose helps.  

Well Done, great image. 

Tony G

[MarkS]

Ironically I didn't actually see this particular meteor - I was facing the other way.  Mike saw it and shouted out.  When he described the path it had taken (very close to my imaging area) I thought there was a chance that I may have captured something.

Mark

[mickw]

So the meteor tried to creep behind your back ?

Didn't reckon on the Lucky Camera though did it 

Novice question :   Is the green a product of the CLS filter ?

[Rick]

Nice one! Any idea how much of the spreat in the trail is real and how much is down to coma (et.al.) at the corner of the camera field?

[Mike]

Very nice Mark. I knew you had a good chance of capturing it. That detail is definitely not coma it is undoubtedly the spread of the tail in the upper atmosphere, you can see it curl back on itself. Great shot. You really are a jammy *** !!

[Rocket Pooch]

Bloody hell you were at the right place at the right time again!!!

[Mac]

looks just like a green laser from Tony.
Had it been orange, then i would have said Khoom Fay.

Nice capture.

[MarkS]

Novice question :   Is the green a product of the CLS filter ?

Good question!
The green colour is certainly genuine but it is also true that the CLS filter cuts out parts of the remaining spectrum so the image may look greener than it would appear without a filter.  Having said that, if the meteor were red or white then the CLS filter would not make it look green.

how much is down to coma (et.al.)

The stars in the image give some indication of the optical train aberrations but remember that they've also been smeared by 5 minutes of (not very good) seeing.  So I think the optical aberrations play only a small part here.

looks just like a green laser from Tony

That's actually a serious point - can we be certain it isn't a green laser?

Mark

[Mike]

It would be far far wider than that if it was a laser.