The IMO Video Meteor Network Meteor Orbit Determination Workshop #3, Noordwijk/NL, April 17-20, 2010 The IMO Video Meteor Network Sirko Molau Arbeitskreis Meteore e.V. (AKM) International Meteor Organization (IMO) MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Overview History Current Status IMO Video Meteor Database Results Towards VMO MetRec 5 MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network History 1999 - Start of the AKM Video Meteor Network in Germany 2000 - First station outside Germany 2004 - Renamed to IMO Video Meteor Network 2009 - 24 observers in 9 European countries (Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Czech Rep., Netherlands) + USA 2010 - Further growing (e.g. Australia) MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Current Status (I) Chararcteristics of the IMO Network Network of independent video observers each member operates his own equipment at his own costs all stations use the same software (MetRec) and data format Most stations run automated, partly at remote sites data are provided monthly to the IMO Video Meteor Database Variety of different video systems (intensified / non-intensified, small fov / large fov) Taken as single station observations, but in practice there is significant overlap of fovs in central Europe focus on collecting precise single station data subsequent orbit determination in VMO planned MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Current Status of the Network (II) Legend  Regular observer  “Sporadic” observer Not shown:  Las Palmas / ES  Chula Vista / USA  Tucson / USA As of 12/2009 MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Current Status of the Network (III) Google Earth view of FOVs at 100 km altitude MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Current Status of the Network (IV) Google Earth view of FOVs at 100 km altitude MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

IMO Video Meteor Database (I) Content For each night: a logfile (text) from each observation dBase files (PosDat) with the position data of all meteors For each meteor: a sum image a „meteor band“ with 1/25s or 1/30s temporal resolution a text file with detailed photometric and astrometric data (contains all relevant data for further processing like orbit determination) MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

IMO Video Meteor Database (II) MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

IMO Video Meteor Database (III) Status All video observations from 1993 to 2009 are archived >550,000 meteors in PosDat format, accessible at www.imonet.org MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Results (I) Monthly reports on IMO News and in WGN including preliminary analyses of individual meteor showers Recordings of unusual meteors and fireballs Automated analyses of overall shower activity and individual meteor showers (Molau & Rendtel, 2009) 9 major and 44 minor meteor showers were detected, among them 12 new showers For each shower, the activity interval and maximum, the radiant position and drift, the velocity and an activity profile (Video rate – similar to ZHR) were presented Discovery of continuous increase (e.g. LYR, ETA, KCG) or decrease (e.g. SDA, QUA, CAP, NOO, JPE) of meteor shower velocity in the activity interval Corrections for individual showers (e.g. DLM/COM), other „established“ MDC showers were not detected at all (e.g. PPU, TAH, COR, PCA, OCC) Confirmation of other observations and results (e.g. SonotaCo network) MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Results (II) IMO Network Each dot one radiant 17.000 radiants with 10-103 met. Radiant velocity color coded Radiants strength intensity coded SonotaCo Network Each dot one orbit 39.000 orbits Radiant velocity color coded MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Results (III) Examples Precise activity profiles for meteor showers, even when ZHRmax < 5 MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Results (IV) Examples Velocity decrease of SDA and CAP in July/August MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Results (V) Examples New meteor showers (mainly in July / August thanks to the large data set) MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network Towards VMO Recent Achievements Preparation of MetRec import filter for VMO incl. consistency checks (G. Barentsen, testing: D. Koschny) Initial import of all data (G. Barentsen) Further optimization of observation post-processing to prevent typical errors Significant reduction of manual consistency checks To Do Automated upload of observations to VMO after post-processing MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network MetRec 5 (I) Latest Development Two major limitations of MetRec Software was written for DOS and runs only on DOS/Win98 Supports only Matrox Meteor framegrabber family (which is also of certain advantage) In 2008, ESA programmer H. Smith started to work on a Windows port In 2009, Hans and me have cooperated intensively on this issue The code base for DOS and Win has been combined, all OS specific functions were moved to specific modules Some core routines (frame handling, time determination) underwent a significant redesign and simplification A number of bugs that went unnoticed under DOS were identified and corrected New features were implemented on the new code base The combined code base was taken over by me in fall 2009, the new version MetRec 5 is available as beta since late 2009 MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network MetRec 5 (II) New Features Grab/GrabSeq/GrabStrm: date & time stamp can be inserted MetRec: a background image may be saved after a predefined amount of time; DST correction; Ref2Txt & Txt2Kml: create KML files in a comfortable way RadFind & StrmFind: implementation of the new radiant and meteor shower search algorithm (observability function, Laplace distribution, recomputed meteor shower assignment, meteor altitude formula); shower identification based on the MDC working list with >300 showers RefStars: combined measurement of several reference images MetRec, PostProc & Co: extension of PosDat header IDs 000-ZZZ, the frame grabber device number can be chosen if more than one grabber is installed (not yet fully tested) PostProc: eff. observing time correction, data copying, PosDat file correction MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network MetRec 5 (III) Current Status The massive re-organization and simplification of source code required a longer stabilization phase (also of the DOS version) A few minor function are still missing in the Windows version, but both version are actively used now Remaining Limits Still dependent on Meteor II framegrabber, which was discontinued by Matrox in 2008 (but which is still readily available at EBAY) Code compiles on 32 and 64 bit Windows, but Matrox meteor driver is only available for XP On the long run, either the support of next generation Matrox framegrabbers or the switch to OS video interfaces (incl. MIL replacement) is required MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network

Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network End Questions? MOD WS #3 Sirko Molau: The IMO Video Meteor Network