Obtaining data - field work

• The radar is run in a four-beam configuration (NE, NW, SE, SW), 30º zenith angle
• We calculate our favorite beam - it is the one which is closest to perpendicular to the expected stream meteor paths
• One video camera is set up at the radar site, i.e. at 10.49 °E, 51.66 °N (Harz mountains)
• The other camera is set up 34.5 km away to get good stereo viewing, at 9.99 °E, 51.65 °N (Bühle)
• We calculate the star background which the cameras have to see to look into our favorite beam, see figure for an example of the finder chart
• We start recording. See the figure for a sketch of the observing geometry.

Obtaining data - inside work

• From the radar, the removable hard disks are copied onto the MPAE computer
• An IDL routine converts the raw data into something more readable
• Radar data is searched by a software with threshold detection to find meteors
• A list giving time, amplitude and echo duration is produced
• The video tapes are checked for meteors
• The frames containing meteors are digitized and summed up
• The frames are examined with ViDAS Quicklook, a software developed at ESA/SSD especially for the evaluation of video meteor data. ViDAS generates a FITS file of the meteor event as output, see here for an example (2.2 MB Zipfile, can be viewed with a good FITS viewer).
• The apparent meteor position is measured with an astrometry software
• Another software is used to determine the true flight path of a meteor by the two video observations
• The magnitude of the meteor is determined by comparing it to stars
• A list giving meteor time, magnitude, radiant, angle to radar and more is produced

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