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Observing the Aurigid Meteor Shower

4 September 2007

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These panels show the Aurigid meteor shower observed from Hawaii (top) and Maui (bottom). The separation of the two stations will allow the trajectory of the meteor in the atmosphere to be determined.

Credits: ESA (J. Mc Auliffe)

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The Aurigids originate from C/1911 N1 Kiess, or comet Kiess, a long-period comet that takes about 2000 years to orbit the Sun.

Long period comets (with periods greater than 200 years) are believed to originate from the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of small bodies (comets), situated about 50 to 50,000 AU from the Sun (1 Astronomical Unit is equal to the distance of Earth from the Sun, or approximately 150 million km). It is thought to be a remnant of the original protoplanetary disc that formed around the Sun, about 4.6 thousand million years ago.

Credits: Southwest Research Institute

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The constellation of Auriga rising above the horizon as seen from the Aurigid MAC aircraft, at an altitude of 14 300 m.

Credits: NASA/ESA (J.Hatton)

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UV-II and VIS-II High Definition TV cameras used by the Kobe Universtiy team on Maui.

Credits: ESA

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The observation sites of the 2007 Hawaii Aurigid Campaign are indicated on the map.

Teams from ESA’s Meteor Research Group and Kobe University, Japan were located at the Onizuka Vistors Center on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Another team from Kobe University was situated Maui at the Haleakala Observatory.

It is a Google Earth image made up of images from NASA, Terrametrics and Europa Technologies.

Credits: Google

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The Smart Panoramic Optical Sensor Head (SPOSH) camera imaging the night sky between 12 and 13 August 2007 (when the Perseid metor shower reached its peak), at the Kanzelhöhe Observatory in Austria.

The (SPOSH) camera, a highly sensitive instrument whose performance was tested during the Perseid observation campaign, is built for future use as a night-side imager of planets. It could also be used to observe meteors from space.

SPOSH was developed by Jena-Optronics and DLR under ESA contract.

Credits: ESA

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A composite image showing three Aurigid meteors photographed from one of the Aurigid MAC Gulfstream aircraft at 14 300 m using a digital camera.

Credits: NASA - ESA (J.Hatton)

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ESA Meteor Research Group Watec 120N low light camera installed on Gulfstream aircraft for meteor flux imaging. Upper instrument is a CCD camera for photometric measurement of atmospheric extinction.

Credits: NASA - ESA (J.Hatton)

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A Gulfstream V aircraft used for the NASA/SETI Aurigid MAC mission. The stars of Sagitarius are visible in the sky above the aircraft.

Credits: NASA - ESA (J.Hatton)

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