All‐sky imaging of meteor trails at 55.25 MHz with the first station of the Long Wavelength Array
All‐sky imaging of meteor trails at 55.25 MHz with the first station of the Long Wavelength Array
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DOI：
10.1002/2013rs005220
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发表时间：
2014-03
期刊：
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
J. Helmboldt;Steven W. Ellingson;J. Hartman;T. Lazio;G. B. Taylor;Thomas L. Wilson;C. Wolfe
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Helmboldt;Steven W. Ellingson;J. Hartman;T. Lazio;G. B. Taylor;Thomas L. Wilson;C. Wolfe
A new capability for high‐sensitivity, all‐sky monitoring of VHF meteor trail reflections with the first station of the Long Wavelength Array, or “LWA1,” is described. LWA1 is a ∼100 m diameter HF/VHF array of 256 crossed‐dipole antennas with a unique transient buffer mode that allows it to monitor for meteor trails via all‐sky imaging with the same sensitivity as a single‐dish antenna ≳40m in diameter. To demonstrate this capability, we have used a 2 h observing run conducted in August 2012 aimed at detecting and characterizing meteor trail reflections of analog TV transmissions at 55.25 MHz. The analysis techniques described here allowed for a detection rate of ∼9500 trails per hour, including the detection of two meteor streams with radiants in the Aries/Perseus and Aquila/Hercules regions that were not previously reported in the literature. In addition, we have found a population of relatively long‐duration (∼1 to a few minutes), typically faint trails. These trails have implied horizontal speeds of 15–130 m s−1, with a typical speed of ∼30 m s−1. We have also used high‐resolution time series of the brightest trails to characterize decay times over a relatively large geographical area (10°×7° in longitude and latitude) and on short (∼5 min) time scales. Potential enhancements that could be enabled by the addition of more LWA stations are discussed.
