Meteor Detector - Resurrected!

[Al.Grant]

Hi,

 

Seeing Grahams recent meteor hits (images and video) gave me the inspiration I needed to get my meteor detector back up and running.

It had been running in the past from 2014 - 2016 when a HD crash killed off my laptop. When I eventually got the laptop back up and running I never really got around to setting it up again.

 

The 2m OWL Yagi antenna I had used in the past is still sitting there with all cables in place and my Funcube Pro+ dongle was still available.

Theoretically all I needed to do was plug everthing back together, load up my old scripts and it should run ......... I was actually quite suprised when this actually worked first go! 

Initially it looked like I had an issue with the FCD, however it turned out to just need a replacement adapter between the antenna cable and the FCD's sma connector - a much quicker and cheaper fix!

The antenna looks like it needs a little tidying up but not bad for being up there for about 6 years

 

The script I used in Spectrum Lab was one given to me by Philip Norton (EMS member but looks like he no longer visits) who has a much, much better idea of how to write Spec Lab scripts than I do.

I contacted him again last week and he has very kindly sent me a copy of his latest script which I have loaded up and again everything is running nicely.

I've made a couple of tweaks to suit my needs but mostly just the speed of the waterfall and it's now going to be left running for a few days to see how it all goes.

 

But at the moment things are looking good.....

 

There are still a few things I want to tweak as the audio isn't recording correctly, but I'm fairly certain that's down to my laptop config rather than the scripts.

 

Currently the script is set to NOT capture an image of every meteor hit.  Last time it was active I soon tired of going through dozens of images each day.

It is set to capture meteors above certain s/n and duration levels (configurable in the script) and will capture the 'Brightest' (highest S/N ratio) meteor, the 'Longest' (longest duration) meteor each

day (12:00-12:00) and also the longest meteor detection for the current month. 

 

Eventually I'll start to upload the restults to the RMOB website and also plan to get the current images to auto upload to some spare webspace.

But for now it just needs to sit there and capture some data to make sure the tweaks I've done haven't broken anything.

 

If Philip Norton see's then thanks again for the scripts and info on configuring it.

You can check out his current meteor detection images on his website here:  Hykeham Observatory 

 

Not forgetting a thanks to Graham ...... his posts gave the the nudge I needed to get this back up and running ?

 

Cheers

      Al

 

 

 

[+Graham]

Nice one Al. 

Looking forward to seeing someone else's stuff. 

 

[Al.Grant]

 

Cheers Graham,

 

I think I'll stop tinkering with the script now .... it picked this up a few mins ago, so it seems to be doing it's stuff!

 

 

Al

 

 

 

 

 

[Al.Grant]

More tinkering .....

Spec Lab allows you to run 2 instances, so with a bit of tweaking and re-naming of the .USR and Conditional Actions files I've got 2 copies running.

One with the waterfall display and trying one out with the 3D display.  Not seeing any conflicts so far and both capturing meteors as they come in.

 

Waterfall Display:

3D Display:

 

Now it's definitely time to walk away from the keyboard and see how it holds up overnight!

 

[+Graham]

I got that one as well. ? 

Interesting that you are running at a lower frequency range than I am.

What have you got your min thresh hold set at to minimize the small ones.

I am running at 20.

Considering raising it up to around the 25 - 30 point for the same reason.

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Graham

[Al.Grant]

Nice ..... ?

Great to see some correlation.

[+Graham]

ditto ?

[Al.Grant]

31 minutes ago, Graham said:

I got that one as well. ? 

Interesting that you are running at a lower frequency range than I am.

What have you got your min thresh hold set at to minimize the small ones.

I am running at 20.

Considering raising it up to around the 25 - 30 point for the same reason.

 

My threshold is also at 20 - that seems to be the norm!

Looking at my old scripts it used to be set at 18.  To judge it I watched/listened to detector for a while and there were things that were certainly meteorites that didn't get counted so I dropped it down.  This set-up looks good at 20 so I'll leave it there for now.

 

The script I have counts all hits that meet the threashold level but only capture images for those hits above a specified level, so it drastically cuts down on the number of screen captures that get taken.  Obviously you miss seeing some of the smaller ones but they're mostly small blips on the screen.  All the bigger stuff gets captured.

 

The same applies to recording .wav files, however I need to look closer at my audio config as it's creating .wav files but they are all 0 bytes.

I was using the laptop to pipe some scanner audio to various applications so there are a few things I need to check and I'm pretty certain that's down to my audio config rather than the script.

 

As for the lower freq - yeah!   Although I'm not sure why Phil has it set at that, but it's working and I'm hearing the pings so I'm happy and the only difference I see (or rather hear) is the ping is at a slightly lower tone.

 

The Components screen is a bit more complicated that the script I used before.  This one uses an oscillator for freq adjustment, but I've not looked at that yet.

 

 

Al

 

 

 

 

[Al.Grant]

On 19/08/2019 at 15:55, Graham said:

What have you got your min thresh hold set at to minimize the small ones.

I am running at 20.

Considering raising it up to around the 25 - 30 point for the same reason.

Graham,

On the subject of threshold settings.

When Graves stopped transmitting yesterday I took the opportunity to lower my threshold setting to see how low I safely could take it without general noise, pops & crackles

being picked up at counted as a meteor hit. 

 

With no signal from Graves everything was quiet and I was getting zero per/hr.  I dropped the threshold down to 15 and it still didn't pick up anything over a 3 hr period.

Once Graves came back on the air I watched my trace for a while and only saw hits on things that looked like meteors.

I now have it set at 16 on both instances of Spec Lab (waterfall & 3D) and it all seems stable and only counting things that look like meteors and they are all on the expected

frequence, rather than up/down the freq scale (I'm guessing noise would be far more ranom).

 

 

I have also started uploading data to the RMOB website. (image should update on the hr with a refresh)

Getting colorgramme to upload correctly was driving me nuts until I remembered that it doesn't like newer versions of Windows and certinly not 64bit versions. 

Setting compatability to Win Vista fixed it!  ....... VISTA ? You'd think they'd have updated it by now!

 

I'd like to find a way to automatically extrace daily/monthly meteor counts, although I can do it manually from the logs.

 

 

Al

 

 

 

 

 

[+Graham]

Al are you going to Kelling next month. ????

If yes I wold like to pick your brains on how to set up the rest of this.

[Al.Grant]

No, sorry - not goint to Kelling.

Happy to try help via email if that's any good

 

Al

[+Graham]

Thanks Al. 

Have pm'd you.

[Guest]

The big challenge now is to capture the latest Perseid of the year. I tried tonight but gave up, due to cloud. 

 

My earliest this year was July 21st, four days after the official start of the shower. 

 

I'd like to see if you and Graham can find any meteors before July 17th and after August 24th. If so, it could mean that the shower lasts for longer and I can pass the results to the IMO.

[Guest]

PLEASE check your detectors from 0000 to 0030 GMT. I saw 3 shower meteors and 1 bright sporadic that originated from western Cassiopeia of mag 1.

[Al.Grant]

Hi

 

9 hours ago, Sunny Phil said:

The big challenge now is to capture the latest Perseid of the year. I tried tonight but gave up, due to cloud. 

My earliest this year was July 21st, four days after the official start of the shower. 

I'd like to see if you and Graham can find any meteors before July 17th and after August 24th. If so, it could mean that the shower lasts for longer and I can pass the results to the IMO.

Not really sure how I'd be able to say for certain if a hit was from a specific shower or a sporadic.

Last time my detector was active I was seeing hits everyday, all year round and some of those where quite big, bright.

I can't check before the 17th on mine as it's only been back up and running full time since the 18th - before that it was up/down for a day or two whilst I adjusted the scripts.

 

8 hours ago, Sunny Phil said:

PLEASE check your detectors from 0000 to 0030 GMT. I saw 3 shower meteors and 1 bright sporadic that originated from western Cassiopeia of mag 1.

As far as I'm aware meteors detected using Graves are not normall visible from the UK.

The Graves signal is transmitted in a Southerly direction from Djion and backscatter reflections tend to be from meteors over N France down towards the Med.

The antennas used here are directional Yagi's and they need to be pointed in a SE direction towards Djion.

 

I know of one person trying to use Graves to detect 'local' UK meteors and he is getting some but has only managed to get a visual/spec lab hit correlation one 1 meteor.

Since the TV signal has gone digital I'm not aware of a suitable Tx source that could be used.  Perhaps the best option would be the Brams HF transmitter in Belgium.

 

I'm still experimenting with running 2 Speclab traces. One showing a 60sec zoomed in trace and the other a longer trace showing around 5 mins, but I'm still tweaking the longer trace.

 

Al

 

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Al.Grant said:

Hi

 

Not really sure how I'd be able to say for certain if a hit was from a specific shower or a sporadic.

Last time my detector was active I was seeing hits everyday, all year round and some of those where quite big, bright.

I can't check before the 17th on mine as it's only been back up and running full time since the 18th - before that it was up/down for a day or two whilst I adjusted the scripts.

 

As far as I'm aware meteors detected using Graves are not normall visible from the UK.

The Graves signal is transmitted in a Southerly direction from Djion and backscatter reflections tend to be from meteors over N France down towards the Med.

The antennas used here are directional Yagi's and they need to be pointed in a SE direction towards Djion.

 

I know of one person trying to use Graves to detect 'local' UK meteors and he is getting some but has only managed to get a visual/spec lab hit correlation one 1 meteor.

Since the TV signal has gone digital I'm not aware of a suitable Tx source that could be used.  Perhaps the best option would be the Brams HF transmitter in Belgium.

 

I'm still experimenting with running 2 Speclab traces. One showing a 60sec zoomed in trace and the other a longer trace showing around 5 mins, but I'm still tweaking the longer trace.

 

Al

 

 

Shame really. Graham has detected meteors that I have seen visually. I'm due a replacement intervalometer when my ship comes in so I don't catch much photographically. It would be a great amateur discovery if we could detect a Perseid tonight.

[Al.Grant]

 

Spent a bit of time over the past 2 days looking at how to create various logs and the info contained in the logs generated by the script I'm using.

 

I can use RMOB to see my detections per hour for the each day and I can use Excel to import some of the data from the logs to give me a count for total meteors

for the day and also show durations. 

The vast majority are short 'pings' with a duration of 1 but it's easy to see that some are far larger.

Due to the number of meteors the time scale is a little cramped and I'm going to have a play around to try find a better way to dispay the data.

 

Duration:

 

The image below is the metor circled in red above captured at 13:33 23 Aug 2019.

 

RMOB image:

 

 

 

Al