Multi-Instrument Observations of Bright Meteors in the Czech Republic

Abstract

We present detailed data on 8 bright meteors recorded simultaneously by different observational techniques. All meteors were recorded by all-sky cameras at the Czech stations of the European Fireball Network and by image intensified TV cameras placed at Ondrejov and Kunzak observatories. As well as direct photographic and LLLTV recordings, most of meteors were recorded also by the spectral TV camera and some also by photographic spectral cameras. For 6 cases, lightcurves from radiometers with very high time resolution (1200 s−1) are also available. From all these detections we found a significant difference between TV and photographic beginning heights. TV beginnings are in average about 40 km higher than the photographic ones. We found that meteor brightness is up to 2 magnitudes higher in the photographic system than in the TV system. This difference for high velocity meteors is mainly caused by the presence of strong Ca+ lines in the blue part of the spectrum, where the image intensifier is only marginally sensitive. At heights above 110 km, the Na line is usually brighter than the Mg line, while at lower heights both lines have comparable brightness. In one of two captured spectra of short duration luminous trains, a small initial brightening of the Mg and Na lines caused by recombination processes was observed.