Observatories


Sentinel All Sky Camera

This is the smallest of our 'domed observatories'. It is a Sentinel All Sky Camera built by Sandia Labs and distributed without cost to observing sights all over the country. I high sensitivity video camera in the dome is monitored by a custom computer and records meteors entering the atmosphere and produces a short video. We are working with two other cameras, one it Tucson with Robert Crawford and another in Santa Fe with Thomas Ashcraft. We hope to learn more about the actual reentry speeds and depth that the bolides penetrate into the atmosphere.

 

The Sentinel Camera System mounted on the roof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On occasion an incoming meteor is detected by two of the cameras and team member Bruce Gary has worked up the math to calculate the meteor's trajectory and shows the work here. Next we recreate it in Google Earth in order to potentially target impact zones should a large fireball be detected. The picture below is from Google Earth and you can download the 3D file here and play with it yourself.

 

This incoming meteor was detected by the Sierra Vista camera as well as Santa Fe over 300 miles away! It came down over Mexico and started burning 66 miles up. It traveled over 30 miles in less than a second until it burned up.

 

********* Update 3-26-10**************************

Robert Crawford has completed the data reduction pipeline to get position, altitude and velocity information from our two camera detections. I have translated the data into a code file for Google Earth so it can be displayed in actual position at altitude. The picture below shows a long fireball that came in north to south and may have fallen in Mexico. The light curve is superimposed on the top of the trajectory which is the bottom edge. We hope to have 5 cameras operational this year.

We also caught the first meteor spectrum!