Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of New Mexico

Center for Astrophysics Research and Technologies Seminar Series

Detecting Persistent Trains from Meteors

Presented by Logan Cordonnier (UNM)

We present a pipeline for identifying optical persistent trains (PTs) in images taken by the Widefield Persistent Train (WiPT) camera. By using a linear Hough transform, straight lines can be detected in the images which are then classified as airplanes or meteor streaks based on duration. The meteor streaks are then masked and correlated with the previous frame to provide a baseline, as well as with the frames immediately following the meteor streak. Subtraction of these correlations shows whether there is lingering structure indicative of PTs. This net correlation image is masked and summed along the angle of the meteor streak. A well-defined, single peak in the summed values is expected if a PT is present. Using this process, two new PTs have been identified in a small subset of the available data, with many more expected to follow as the search is expanded. Once PTs can be reliably identified, the next step is to statistically analyze them to determine which meteors produce PTs and how they relate to the meteors which produce meteor radio afterglows (MRAs).

4:00 pm, Monday, August 16, 2021
PAIS-1100, PAIS

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