The Global Meteor Network – Methodology and first results

ABSTRACT 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 characterizatio...

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Veröffentlicht in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2021-10, Vol.506 (4), p.5046-5074
Hauptverfasser: Vida, Denis, Šegon, Damir, Gural, Peter S, Brown, Peter G, McIntyre, Mark J M, Dijkema, Tammo Jan, Pavletić, Lovro, Kukić, Patrik, Mazur, Michael J, Eschman, Peter, Roggemans, Paul, Merlak, Aleksandar, Zubović, Dario
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:ABSTRACT 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-h 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° × 48°) with a limiting stellar magnitude of +6.0 ± 0.5 at 25 frames per second, over 220 000 precise meteoroid orbits were collected since 2018 December until 2021 June. The median radiant precision of all computed trajectories is 0.47°, 0.32° for $\sim 20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ 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 arcmin and tens of meters per second.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1093/mnras/stab2008