Monday, June 26, 2017

Meteor Detection: Some Initial Results

I've analyzed the results of a 24-hour run of the detection system from a few days ago and the results are promising.

The analysis was the visual inspection of 1,542 screen caps taken at 55 second intervals


The columns represent meteor counts in a given hour; for example, column 0 show that about 150 meteors were counted between midnight and 1 A.M. Because I tried to count only things that I felt were clearly meteor signals the above diagram represents an underestimate of meteor activity. Even with that, this is a fair replication of the diurnal meteor cycle. More days of data would be better, of course.

This was performed using my attic antenna monitoring Canadian station CITO, channel 3, at 61.26MHz.

When I went to repeat this it was evident that something had changed with the signal. Meteors were now producing a strange oscillating siren signal that appeared as interwoven sine waves on the waterfall chart.  I noticed that LiveMeteors.com was showing an anomalous signal as well, and shortly after that switched frequency to 55.24MHz, that of a channel 2 station (probably CHBX in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario).

I've now switched to that same frequency and, using Argo, am collection another day's worth of data.  Argo presents what is essentially a highly zoomed version of the SDR# waterfall, but with a couple of advantages. Argo makes clear that when I use the channel 2 frequency that I'm monitoring several stations at once--there appear to be slight offsets in the carrier frequencies. It also makes it easy to see when a signal is due to a reflection of a local channel 2 from aircraft. (I'll post some diagrams showing this soon.) The Argo strip chart allows me to do a screen cap every eight minutes, which will make counting meteors much easier.

I'll post more as I start analyzing results and gain a better understanding of what Argo is showing me.

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And it's clear tonight! I should be able to get the first half of my mosaic done! Yay!!!


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