[meteorite-list] Astro Mikes meteor streak Photo

[Richard Kowalski]

-- On Sun, 7/12/09, Kelly Beatty <jkellybeatty at comcast.net> wrote:


> Rich K: you'll have to cut Mike a little slack. he is just
> starting out in
> astronomy (last January, in fact). I don't know about you,
> but my astrophotos
> weren't nearly this good after having been in the hobby for
> just 6 months.
> 
> 
> clear skies,
> Kelly
> 

Hey Kelly,

I certainly did not mean to be overly critical of his images. No question my early work was seriously flawed too, but as you know, dark frames and flats are basic. Most people learn to use dark frames very quickly and flats usually come soon after that. I was just pointing this out. You see a lot of things in images when you are new to this technology that you can't identify, but soon you learn to understand what you see and I have to question someone who is obviously unskilled making such claims...

That being said, I have looked at the images a little more critically, or should I say with a little more open mind. I'm not longer entirely convinced that these are aircraft lights and may in fact be fragments from a late stage in the bright flight of the body, after it has begun its break-up. I'll retract my definitive statement that it wasn't the fireball, but I'm going to need a lot more proof that he actually caught it before I will agree that this is an image of the object in question.

Cheers

--
Richard