我国古代记录的特殊流星现象与现代印证

中国古代有着大量的对于流星和流星雨的观测记录，最早可以追溯到3000多年以前。在这些珍贵的记录中，不仅有对于流星的一般描述，而且还有一些至今不能完全理解的特殊流星现象的记录。基于现代对电声变换流星声、流星体的螺旋线形运动、流星的颜色变化和流星的分裂等等的研究，列出在中国古代文献中可以查找到的有关记录。这些记录，不仅是世界文化宝库的一部分，而且对于今天的研究仍有实用价值。对电声变换流星声的报道，只是近20年来，才确立了的并非是观测者的臆想。流星的现代彩色照相观测，更真实地记录和展现了其他的特殊流星现象和它们的发生与演变。这些古代记录与现代的流星观测的对比，可以起到相互印证的作用。     

观看狮子座流星雨——从入门到精通

一、同场竞技 随着近几年的狮子座流星雨的爆发,加上各种媒体的争相报道和炒作,对观看流星发生兴趣的人越来越多。在许多人看来,如果能有幸看到夜空中星雨飘落,并且在流星出现的瞬间许下一个心愿,该是人生中多么美好的记忆啊。 流星天文学作为天文学的一个分支,许多理论和方法都有待于依靠进一步的观测来不断地完善,而流星的观测,不仅仅是专业天文工作者的事情,实际上,     

流星的亮度与质量和速度的关系

1.問題的提出在研究太阳系空間里流星物貭的密度时,以及在研究每天落入我們地球大气里的流星物貭总数和这些物貭按其貭量大小的分布情况时,我們首先会遇到一个問題,那就是我們所看見的流星的亮度和它們原来的貭量与速度之間有什么关系.只有知道了这个关系,我們才可以从观測到的流星的亮度、速度推出它們原来的貭量大小,这样我們才有可能利用对流星的观測資料去研究以上提出的問題.要知道流星的亮度和貭量及速度間的关系,首先必須知道流星在大气中飞行时的全部物理过程,可見这个問題的解决是与流星物理     

我国天文爱好者发现新流星群

北京80中学高二学生孟奂在2001年观测狮子座流星雨时,发现北天有很多偶发流星,通过与自己1998年和1999年所绘的观测图进行比较,有36颗流星惊人地来自同一个辐射点,这说明很可能存在一个新流星群。为了进一步求证,孟奂登陆北美流星协会和国际流星协会组织,以及国内的天文网站,向世界各地流星观测者求助。最后经过对全球反馈回来的信     

狮子座流星雨1999年照相观测的分析

对1999年11月19日拍摄的两张狮子座流星胶片进行了分析研究照相观测比目观测记录了更多的定量信息计算了流星在胶片上显露时必须满足的运动角速度条件,求出了流星起始点仰角、流星结束点与辐射点的角距离、流星运动的角速度以及流星路径的弧长等并且得出流星在大气中的烧蚀时间仅0 65秒左右,即烧蚀的路径长约40 50公里通过在扫描仪上得到的黑白图像的处理,求得两颗流星的照相星等分别为-10.3 ± 0.2和-4.8±0.2.由此可以得到它们的质量和电子线密度.给出的处理方法,也可用于其他流星的照相观测资料处理.并且,对流星观测使用的照相镜头也进行了讨论.     

流星雷达测距精度的改进

针对目前流星雷达测距误差大的问题，本文提出了提高流星雷达测距精度的新方法，即提高采样速率，用相关分析确定回波脉冲参考点的方法。该方法使流星雷达的测距精度提高一个数量级，测距误差降到±１４ｍ，使流星雷达不仅可以用来观测研究流星，还可用于监测飞机、火箭的飞行等，扩大流星雷达的应用。     

流星目视观测中人眼的感知函数

迄今为止,在流星的多种观测手段中,目视观测仍居主导地位.特别是在强流星雨来临的时候,遍布世界的爱好者绝大多数均使用目视观测.因此,人眼对流星的感知函数在研究中起了重要作用.上世纪九十年代,已经基本上完成了对人眼感知函数原始数据的测定.然而,对感知函数的数学表达的解析形式一直在探讨之中.作者近年来的研究,不仅给出了一种对人眼感知函数的一元表达,而且给出了二元表达形式,无论在理论还是实测方面,对流星的目视观测研究都有实际的用途.     

“雨”夜听流星(下)

伽剌费尔在这次行动中,曾经希望天文爱好者们参加到收听VLF无线电波信号的行列中来。他希望同时记录下VLF无线电波的信号和时间,以便仔细地研究流星与VLF无线电信号之间的关系。伽剌费尔究竟要干什么呢?为什么别人注意的是在超短波“听”流星,而他却要在甚低频波段呢?原来,有人说他们在看到流星的时候,就觉得同时听到了似乎是东西碎裂了的、很奇怪的声音。观测者们左顾右看,大惑不解,但又相互证实地说:“是的,我也的确听到了。”     

流星雨摄影观测记录的罕见现象

2001年狮子座流星雨,是几百年来难得有机会在中国观测到的一场流星暴。在我们收集到的照相观测资料中,发现了一些特殊的、还未引起广泛注意的流星现象。"蛇行"的流星以及螺旋形并带有辐条结构的流星余迹,早在我国古代记录中就可以找到印证。现代的照相技术,不仅直观地显示了文字难以描述的颜色、形态和变化,而且提供了可永久性进行测量的记录。其中包括罕见的对流星余迹的双站观测资料。用常规的"高空风作用"难以解释这些观测现象。它们可能反映了流星带电体与地球磁场的相互作用。     

流星漫谈（五）

前面几期我们就数码单反相机拍摄流星的方法做了细致的讨论、不过据说没有标题和不配图的文章让人读起来颇为头痛;笔者于是害怕起来,要是读者都跑到配图丰富的广告版面去斟酌他们的器材的事宜,却没办法把它们用在流星这个爱好者最温馨的家园和坚固的阵地上,那可是笔者的罪责了,后面几期我们要进入的,是一个被称作“流星光谱”的世界。,本期我们先来了解和熟悉一些流星光谱的知识,为了不失全面性和不让读者过多耗费脑力,我们从一张经典的照片和它的说明文字开始（题图）,对每个令人困惑的细节写一段图文并茂的解释,以后几期还要介绍流星光谱的形成原理和拍摄方法、器材,以及笔者的观测经历和观测结果的简单分析。希望这些内容能给同好们打开一个新的天地,不仅是“流星光谱”的,也是流星的,抑或光谱的。     

云南天文台对流星的视频观测

近20年来，随着CCD和像增强器的发展，小巧灵活的流星视频观测系统在世界上逐渐多了起来．并且，最终将可能逐步取代流星的目视观测和普通照相观测．介绍云南天文台I号流星彗星视频照相系统的研制及其初步观测结果．这一系统由容易转换的5组件构成．用于流星观测的大视场相机的视场约36度，单帧图像可观测到约6等恒星．实测的恒星星等测量精度可达约0.2等．还讨论了视频照相机比传统的感光胶卷照相的长处，以及视频照相系统的改进与发展．     

Simultaneous observations of meteors with the radar and TV systems

We have carried out a simultaneous observation of radar and optical meteors with the MU radar (Middle and Upper Atmosphere Radar), Shigaraki and TV camera systems. We usually obtained about 20 meteors per an hour with 85 mm lens, but very small part of them are simultaneously observed by the MU radar (< 5%), suggesting the significance of rectangular scatterring. We have analyzed about 20 simultaneous meteors with magnitudes from 0 to +5.5, most of which are overdense meteors. For Geminid meteors, a linear relation between the logarithm of the echo duration and the absolute magnitude of the TV meteor, was deduced.     

The beginning heights and light curves of high‐altitude meteors

Abstract— In this paper, we provide an overview of meteors with high beginning height. During the recent Leonid meteor storms, as well as within the regular double station video observations of other meteor showers, we recorded 164 meteors with a beginning height above 130 km. We found that beginning heights between 130 and 150 km are quite usual, especially for the Leonid meteor shower. Conversely, meteors with beginning heights above 160 km are very rare even among Leonids. From the meteor light curves, we are able to distinguish two different processes that govern radiation of the meteors at different altitudes. Light curves vary greatly above 130 km and exhibit sudden changes in meteor brightness. Sputtering from the meteoroid surface is the dominating process during this phase of the meteor luminous trajectory. Around 130 km, the process switches to ablation and the light curves become similar to the light curves of standard meteors. The sputtering model was successfully applied to explain the difference in the beginning heights of high‐altitude Leonid and Perseid meteors. We show also that this process in connection with high altitude fragmentation could explain the anomalously high beginning heights of several relatively faint meteors.     

Perseid meteor stream 1991 – 1993 from TV observations in Kiev

Some results of the double station television meteor observations provided in Kiev during the Perseid shower period in years 1991 – 1993 are presented. The dependence of the beginning hights of meteors on their initial velocities based on 57 best reduced double station meteors is constructed. Exceptionaly great beginning heights of meteors are discussed, as well as the exceptional case of a Perseid bolide.     

High Inclination Meteorite Streams can Exist

Meteorites represent bodies at the larger end of the meteoroid size spectrum since they are large enough to survive ablation in the Earth’s atmosphere. They are thus far less numerous than normal meteoroids that become meteors. A number of meteorites can arrive at around the same time and location and so in some sense represent a stream, but these are just recent fragmentations. Most meteors, according to their cosmic ray exposure age are at least 10 million years old. This is roughly also the timescale for the onset of chaos in the inner Solar System and so conventional wisdom is that meteorites can not survive on such orbits for such a time span and that they certainly cannot survive as coherent streams. We investigate numerically the survival of streams for this time interval.     

Very small bodies in the solar system: The Earth's atmosphere as detector

Particles of mass less than about 1 gm are a minor fraction of the total matter impinging on the Earth averaged over millennia time scales. However, these particles dominate during a single particular year and produce the most obvious evidence of incoming extra-terrestrial matter in the form of ablation trails in the atmosphere which are visible at night as meteors.Observations of meteors give astronomical information on the composition, structure, and cometary associations of the particles. The composition is deduced from optical spectra of meteors, whilst telescopic studies of the trails during formation give information on the physical structure of the particles. Any cometary associations are deduced from measurement of meteor orbits determined photographically, using television, or by radar.Meteors occur in the atmosphere at heights from about 70 to 120 km. Optical observations are restricted to night-time and usually under conditions of low moonlight. A typical television based detector can record +8^M meteors with a sporadic rate of 15–20 per hour and velocities accurate to about 3%. The luminosity of the trail is strongly dependent on the velocity of the meteoroid (to about the third power).Radar observations of meteors are unrestricted by weather or time of day, and can readily detect meteors at least two orders of magnitude smaller in mass than those detectable optically. Again the observations are heavily biased toward the higher velocities as the electron line density varies approximately asV ^3.5. However, the higher the velocity of the meteoroid the greater the height of the meteor trail, and the reduced probability of radar detection due to rapid diffusion of the trail. Thus radar observations tend to select meteors in the intermediate velocity range 30–40 km s^–1.     

Search for New Parent Bodies of Meteoroid Streams Among Comets. I. Showers of Comets 126P/1996 P1 and 161P/2004 V2 with Radiants on Southern Sky

We deal with theoretical meteoroid streams the parent bodies of which are two Halley-type comets in orbits situated at a relatively large distance from the orbit of Earth: 126P/1996 P1 and 161P/2004 V2. For two perihelion passages of each comet in the far past, we model the theoretical stream and follow its dynamical evolution until the present. We predict the characteristics of potential meteor showers according to the dynamical properties of theoretical particles currently approaching the orbit of the Earth. Our dynamical study reveals that the comet 161P/2004 V2 could have an associated Earth-observable meteor shower, although no significant number of theoretical particles are identified with real, photographic, video, or radar meteors. However, the mean radiant of the shower is predicted on the southern sky (its declination is about −23°) where a relatively low number of real meteors has been detected and, therefore, recorded in the databases used. The shower of 161P has a compact radiant area and a relatively large geocentric velocity of ∼53 km s⁻¹. A significant fraction of particles assumed to be released from comet 126P also cross the Earth’s orbit and, eventually, could be observed as meteors. However, their radiant area is largely dispersed (declination of radiants spans from about +60° to the south pole) and, therefore, mixed with the sporadic meteor background. An identification with real meteors is practically impossible.     

Results from the AIM-IT Meteor Tracking System

The recent development and data collection results of the Astrobiology Instrumentation for Meteor Imaging and Tracking (AIM-IT) system, has demonstrated an ability to point narrow field-of-view instruments at transient events such as meteors. AIM-IT uses the principle of tracking moving objects via a paired set of relay mirrors along with an integrated hardware/software solution, to acquire and track meteors in real-time. Development of the instrument has progressed from a prototype rocker-box system through more recent use of a fast response mirror system during several meteor shower campaigns. Several narrow field of view instruments have been deployed using AIM-IT including high spatial resolution video, high frame rate video, and meteor spectrographic equipment. Analysis of the imagery shows evidence for meteor fragmentation in as many as 20% of the meteors tracked thus far. The success of the AIM-IT technology in tracking meteors during their luminous flight provides a new tool in enhancing the capabilities and data volume that can be obtained with existing narrow field of view instruments.