SIERRA COLLEGE
ASTRONOMY DEPARTMENT
Meteor Camera Investigations
What is the Sierra College Meteor Camera?
This page contains recent video captures taken with the Sierra College Astronomy Dept., Sandia Fireball Network Camera.
Click here for more details about the Network and participants METEORS!
The system is an “All Sky” video camera which has a 180 deg. field of view. There is a custom signal processor and memory
system which buffers a few seconds of video. The processor compares each frame to the previous, and when it detects an event
(meteor), the previous frames are sent to a host Linux system. Software in this system produces a "back in time" image and a video.
These videos are xxx.mov files, and can be viewed with an Apple Quicktime plugin viewer.The videos are black and
white and have been false colored (amber) to enhance contrast and event detections. The xxx.jpg images are composites
of the entire video.
The camera is located on top of the Sewall Hall Science Building on campus at 38 deg. 47’ 25.9” of latitude and
121 deg. 12’ 49.3” longitude and an elevation of 90 meters in Rocklin, CA (USA), about 20 miles northeast of
Sacramento, CA. We are coordinating our observations with Wayne Watson in Nevada City who is also operating a
Sandia Fireball Network Camera. All events captured by BOTH cameras have a "WW" following the Sentinel date and time
header.
A fireball (or bollide) is another name for a very bright meteor due to atmospheric entry of space debris, both natural and
man-made. Our experience thus far shows that they occur about once a day, with a bright one every week or so. The cameras began regular
operation around mid-April 2004. It is an automated system which operates from just before dusk to just after dawn.
Some day time operations have been attempted, but so only a few daytime fireball event have been captured.
Dave Kenyon
Professor of Astronomy
Sierra College Astronomy Dept.
To view a copy of a paper about this program to be presented at the
Society for Astronomical Sciences Symposium May 25th - 26th, 2005
in Big Bear, Ca. click here .
Click here for more details about the symposium SAS!
To view image captures and videos from 2004 click here .
To view image captures and videos from 2005 click here .
The most recent captures are posted below:
Sentinel Event 0001 System Time Sat Feb 02 05:23:51 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0002 System Time Mon Feb 04 23:46:28 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0003 System Time Wed Feb 06 00:05:47 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0004 System Time Wed Feb 06 02:03:22 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0005 System Time Thu Feb 07 19:09:03 2008 WW
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Click here for another video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Sentinel Event 0006 System Time Tue Feb 12 05:40:48 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0007 System Time Thu Feb 14 05:28:24 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0008 System Time Fri Feb 15 23:11:50 2008 WW
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Click here for another video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Sentinel Event 0009 System Time Sat Feb 16 00:59:04 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0010 System Time Sat Feb 16 02:05:11 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0011 System Time Sat Feb 16 04:01:53 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0012 System Time Tue Feb 26 02:25:00 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0013 System Time Tue Feb 26 20:50:38 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0014 System Time Thu Feb 28 04:38:42 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0015 System Time Thu Feb 28 22:27:04 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0016 System Time Fri Feb 29 04:06:11 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0017 System Time Sat Mar 08 02:53:23 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view 
Sentinel Event 0018 System Time Thu Mar 13 22:54:11 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0019 System Time Fri Mar 14 01:20:19 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0020 System Time Sat Mar 15 00:41:00 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0021 System Time Fri Mar 21 04:11:08 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0022 System Time Wed Apr 02 00:39:13 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0023 System Time Wed Apr 02 01:15:45 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0024 System Time Sat Apr 05 05:26:58 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0025 System Time Sun Apr 13 02:45:08 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0026 System Time Sun Apr 13 23:13:02 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0027 System Time Tue Apr 15 03:35:47 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Sentinel Event 0028 System Time xxx Apr xx 0x:0x:xx 2008
Click the image for full size view 
Click here for a video of the event! RUN VIDEO
Here is the autoexposure. Click for a full size view
Return to
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For questions or comments regarding
this page, contact the Astronomy Department
Meteor Cam Master
Information
about Sierra College can be obtained from the Sierra College Web
Site
This
web page was last updated on
10/12/06 01:18 PM
Page contents © 2001-2006 Sierra College Astronomy Department
