Hi everyone; Driving home from Kaysville last Sunday night I saw an extremely bright meteor that fell all the way to the horizon. This meteor as well as the topic of other bright meteors over the past couple of nights reminded me of an image that I have been going to post for a couple of weeks now. It was taken last August while imaging IC5068. I noticed the familiar streak across one of the R frames, but this was considerably brighter than most. As I looked at it, I saw a pronounced spiral pattern as it twisted its way through the sky. When enlarged, it also shows a definite "wobble" to the seemingly straight trail. I was reminded of Stephen James O'Meara's article in Septembers' Sky and Telescope, "Twisted Meteor's' (see page 77)where he writes about twisting meteor trails. My original image shows a pronounced twist although the image in my album needs to be enlarged for the twist to be seen to full advantage. I also have included some images of the Double Cluster taken last week. http://www.utahastronomy.com/album24 Hope you find the "twists" as interesting as I did. Ed Lunt __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Edward Lunt wrote:
Hi everyone; Driving home from Kaysville last Sunday night I saw an extremely bright meteor that fell all the way to the horizon. This meteor as well as the topic of other bright meteors over the past couple of nights reminded me of an image that I have been going to post for a couple of weeks now. It was taken last August while imaging IC5068. I noticed the familiar streak across one of the R frames, but this was considerably brighter than most. As I looked at it, I saw a pronounced spiral pattern as it twisted its way through the sky. When enlarged, it also shows a definite "wobble" to the seemingly straight trail.
I've watched shuttles reenter three times and in every case the train (it really is called a "train", BTW) was twisted. Some pictures Holly and I took in 1995, http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW523F.JPG and http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW524F.JPG , sort of show it but it was best seen with binoculars. Really spectacular! Patrick
Patrick; Neat pictures. Thanks for sharing them. Ed L --- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
Edward Lunt wrote:
Hi everyone; Driving home from Kaysville last Sunday night I saw an extremely bright meteor that fell all the way to the horizon. This meteor as well as the topic of other bright meteors over the past couple of nights reminded me of an image that I have been going to post for a couple of weeks now. It was taken last August while imaging IC5068. I noticed the familiar streak across one of the R frames, but this was considerably brighter than most. As I looked at it, I saw a pronounced spiral pattern as it twisted its way through the sky. When enlarged, it also shows a definite "wobble" to the seemingly straight trail.
I've watched shuttles reenter three times and in every case the train (it really is called a "train", BTW) was twisted.
Some pictures Holly and I took in 1995,
http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW523F.JPG
and
http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW524F.JPG
, sort of show it but it was best seen with binoculars. Really spectacular!
Patrick
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Wow, Patrick, those are cool. What's the really bright object near the ground in the first photo? -- Joe
Joe Bauman wrote:
Wow, Patrick, those are cool. What's the really bright object near the ground in the first photo? -- Joe
Glad you liked them. There have been enough positive comments that I'm now thinking of posting the whole series. As for the bright object, I _thought_ it was Arcturus. But now that I've compared the image to what I see on some planetarium software I'm not so sure. Anyone care to try and figure it out. The image was taken from just south of Beaver where highway 20 (visible in the image) cuts off to the east. Date was 05 NOV 1995 and the time was around 0400. Patrick
Patrick Wiggins wrote:
Joe Bauman wrote:
Wow, Patrick, those are cool. What's the really bright object near the ground in the first photo? -- Joe
Glad you liked them. There have been enough positive comments that I'm now thinking of posting the whole series.
As for the bright object, I _thought_ it was Arcturus. But now that I've compared the image to what I see on some planetarium software I'm not so sure.
Anyone care to try and figure it out.
The image was taken from just south of Beaver where highway 20 (visible in the image) cuts off to the east.
Date was 05 NOV 1995 and the time was around 0400.
Patrick
I should add that the picture in question is at: http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW524F.JPG Patrick
--- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
I should add that the picture in question is at: http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW524F.JPG
Subtitled - "There goes Lakeside!" - C __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Quoting Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net>:
Joe Bauman wrote:
Wow, Patrick, those are cool. What's the really bright object near the ground in the first photo? -- Joe
I'll take a wild guess here and say that the bright object at the bottom is probably a Highway sign, maybe 20 East...
As for the bright object, I _thought_ it was Arcturus. But now that I've compared the image to what I see on some planetarium software I'm not so sure.
You will probably find this object listed on a Rand McNally road map.
Patrick, The upper part of that trail looks like a jet contrail that has been blown by the jet stream or upper winds, could that meteor be low enough for its trail to be affected by wind, say 40,000 to 50,000 ft? Wayne -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+webfootboat=comcast.net@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+webfootboat=comcast.net@mailman.xmission. com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 1:47 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Meteor Trail Joe Bauman wrote:
Wow, Patrick, those are cool. What's the really bright object near the
ground in the first photo? -- Joe
Glad you liked them. There have been enough positive comments that I'm now thinking of posting the whole series. As for the bright object, I _thought_ it was Arcturus. But now that I've compared the image to what I see on some planetarium software I'm not so sure. Anyone care to try and figure it out. The image was taken from just south of Beaver where highway 20 (visible in the image) cuts off to the east. Date was 05 NOV 1995 and the time was around 0400. Patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Wayne wrote:
Patrick, The upper part of that trail looks like a jet contrail that has been blown by the jet stream or upper winds, could that meteor be low enough for its trail to be affected by wind, say 40,000 to 50,000 ft? Wayne
Actually, in this case, the "meteor" is shuttle Columbia reentering over southern Utah on 05 NOV 1995. So yes, it definitely was "low" enough to have the train disturbed by wind. Patrick
First, to everyone: I am grateful for the meteor info and I'll relay it to the lady who called. To ed: Very interesting photo. I've take a few meteor views that show wobbles, but this one has more detail in showing how it rotates. -- Many thanks, Joe
Thanks Joe. Ed L --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
First, to everyone: I am grateful for the meteor info and I'll relay it to the lady who called.
To ed: Very interesting photo. I've take a few meteor views that show wobbles, but this one has more detail in showing how it rotates.
-- Many thanks, Joe
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participants (6)
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Canopus56 -
diveboss＠xmission.com -
Edward Lunt -
Joe Bauman -
Patrick Wiggins -
Wayne