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Register a new userHigh precision meteor observations with the Canadian Automated Meteor Observatory -- Data reduction pipeline and application to meteoroid mechanical strength measurements
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Context. The mirror tracking system of the Canadian Automated Meteor Observatory (CAMO) can track meteors in real time, providing an effective angular resolution of 1 arc second and a temporal resolution of 100 frames per second. Aims. We describe the upgraded hardware and give details of the data calibration and reduction pipeline. We investigate the influence of meteor morphology on radiant and velocity measurement precision, and use direct observations of meteoroid fragmentation to constrain their compressive strengths. Methods. On July 21, 2017, CAMO observed a ~4 second meteor on a JFC orbit. It had a shallow entry angle ~8 deg and 12 fragments were visible in the narrow-field video. The event was manually reduced and the exact moment of fragmentation was determined. The aerodynamic ram pressure at the moment of fragmentation was used as a proxy for compressive strength, and strengths of an additional 19 fragmenting meteoroids were measured in the same way. The uncertainty in the atmosphere mass density was estimated to be +/-25% using NAVGEM-HA data. Results. We find that meteor trajectory accuracy significantly depends on meteor morphology. The CAMO radiant and initial velocity precision for non-fragmenting meteors with short wakes is ~0.5 and 1 m/s, while that for meteors with fragments or long wakes is similar to non-tracking, moderate field of view optical systems (5, ~50 m/s). Measured compressive strengths of 20 fragmenting meteoroids (with less precise radiants due to their morphology) was in the range of 1-4 kPa, which is in excellent accord with Rosetta in-situ measurements of 67P. Fragmentation type and strength do not appear to be dependent on orbit. The mass index of the 12 fragments in the July 21 meteoroid was very high (s = 2.8), indicating possible progressive fragmentation.
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We describe an improved technique for using the backscattered phase from meteor radar echo measurements just prior to the specular point ($t_{0}$) to calculate meteor speeds and their uncertainty. Our method, which builds on earlier work of Cervera et al (1997), scans possible speeds in the Fresnel distance - time domain with a dynamic, sliding window and derives a best-speed estimate from the resultant speed distribution. We test the performance of our method, called pre-$t_{0}$ speeds by sliding-slopes technique (PSSST), on transverse scattered meteor echoes observed by the Middle Atmosphere Alomar Radar System (MAARSY) and the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR), and compare the results to time-of-flight and Fresnel transform speed estimates. Our novel technique is shown to produce good results when compared to both model and speed measurements using other techniques. We show that our speed precision is $pm$5$%$ at speeds less than 40 km/s and we find that more than 90$%$ of all CMOR multi-station echoes have PSSST solutions. For CMOR data, PSSST is robust against the selection of critical phase value and poor phase unwrapping. Pick errors of up to $pm$6 pulses for meteor speeds less than about 50 km/s produce errors of less than $pm$5$%$ of the meteoroid speed. In addition, the width of the PSSST speed Kernel density estimate (KDE) is used as a natural measure of uncertainty that captures both noise and $t_0$ pick uncertainties.
Context. Radar scattering from meteor trails depends on several poorly constrained quantities, such as electron line density, q, initial trail radius, r0, and ambipolar diffusion coefficient, D. Aims. The goal is to apply a numerical model of full wave backscatter to triple frequency echo measurements to validate theory and constrain estimates of electron radial distribution, initial trail radius, and the ambipolar diffusion coefficient. Methods. A selection of 50 transversely polarized and 50 parallel polarized echoes with complete trajectory information were identified from simultaneous tri-frequency echoes recorded by the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR). The amplitude-time profile of each echo was fit to our model using three different choices for the radial electron distribution assuming a Gaussian, parabolicexponential, and 1-by-r2 electron line density model. The observations were manually fit by varying, q, r0, and D per model until all three synthetic echo-amplitude profiles at each frequency matched observation. Results. The Gaussian radial electron distribution was the most successful at fitting echo power profiles, followed by the 1-by-r2. We were unable to fit any echoes using a profile where electron density varied from the trail axis as an exponential-parabolic distribution. While fewer than 5% of all examined echoes had self-consistent fits, the estimates of r0 and D as a function of height obtained were broadly similar to earlier studies, though with considerable scatter. Most meteor echoes are found to not be described well by the idealized full wave scattering model.
The Canadian Automated Meteor Observatory (CAMO) detects occasional meteors with two maxima in the image intensified CCD based light curves. We report early results from an analysis of 21 of these events. Most of these events show qualitatively similar light curves, with a rounded luminous peak, followed by an almost linear sharp rise in the second peak, and a relatively rapid curved decay of the second peak. While a number of mechanisms could explain two maxima in the light curves, numerical modelling shows that most of these events can be matched by a simple dustball model in which some grains have been released well before intensive ablation begins, followed by a later release of core grains at a single time. Best fits to observations are obtained with the core grains being larger than the pre-released outer grains, with the core grains typically $10^{-6}$ kg while the early release grains are of the order of $10^{-9}$ kg.
A cluster analysis was applied to the combined meteoroid orbit database derived from low-light level video observations by the SonotaCo consortium in Japan (64,650 meteors observed between 2007 and 2009) and by the Cameras for All-sky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) project in California, during its first year of operation (40,744 meteors from Oct. 21, 2010 to Dec. 31, 2011). The objective was to identify known and potentially new meteoroid streams and identify their parent bodies. The database was examined by a single-linking algorithm using the Southworth and Hawkins D-criterion to identify similar orbits, with a low criterion threshold of D < 0.05. A minimum member threshold of 6 produced a total of 88 meteoroid streams. 43 are established streams and 45 are newly identified streams. The newly identified streams were included as numbers 448-502 in the IAU Meteor Shower Working List. Potential parent bodies are proposed.
The Global Meteor Network (GMN) utilizes highly sensitive low-cost CMOS video cameras which run open-source meteor detection software on Raspberry Pi computers. Currently, over 450 GMN cameras in 30 countries are deployed. The main goal of the network is to provide long-term characterization of the radiants, flux, and size distribution of annual meteor showers and outbursts in the optical meteor mass range. The rapid 24-hour publication cycle the orbital data will enhance the public situational awareness of the near-Earth meteoroid environment. The GMN also aims to increase the number of instrumentally observed meteorite falls and the transparency of data reduction methods. A novel astrometry calibration method is presented which allows decoupling of the camera pointing from the distortion, and is used for frequent pointing calibrations through the night. Using wide-field cameras ($88^{circ}times48^{circ}$) with a limiting stellar magnitude of $+6.0 pm 0.5$ at 25 frames per second, over 220,000 precise meteoroid orbits were collected since December 2018 until June 2021. The median radiant precision of all computed trajectories is $0.47^{circ}$, $0.32^{circ}$ for $sim20%$ of meteors which were observed from 4+ stations, a precision sufficient to measure physical dispersions of meteor showers. All non-daytime annual established meteor showers were observed during that time, including five outbursts. An analysis of a meteorite-dropping fireball is presented which showed visible wake, fragmentation details, and several discernible fragments. It had spatial trajectory fit errors of only ~40 m, which translated into the estimated radiant and velocity errors of 3 arc minutes and tens of meters per second.
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