Optimization of Meteor Triangulations Using Timed Observations

Abstract: Meteors are light events appearing in the sky, looking like strips of light. A meteor occurs when a space object, a meteoroid, enters the earth’s atmosphere at high velocity and starts to glow. Meteor triangulation is an important part in astronomical research, by mapping streams of material in our solar system the knowledge about the solar system is extended. By making measurements with meteor cameras and calculate the meteors trajectories with triangulation methods, the meteors origin in space can be derived. Previous research has shown that by including time measurements, and not only use triangulation techniques with spatial measurements, the trajectory for a meteor can be calculated more accurately. This project seeks to explore if including the time information from the Swedish meteor data would create more precise solutions for the meteor’s paths through the atmosphere. This was done by investigating how the time variable can be implemented and running the Swedish 2020 Perseid data through the algorithm that implements the time variable. The accuracy of the methods is determined by how exact the Perseids radiant position is calculated and also by looking at the computed velocities for the meteor events. The results from this project show that the time variable should be considered in the Swedish meteor triangulation algorithm. With inclusion of the time variable, the radiant position of the Perseids can be more closely determined and the velocities for the meteors are in the expected range for Perseid meteors. But it turns out that the timestamps between the meteor cameras are not synchronized, which means that time offsets between the stations are required.