IMCCE Meteor Team - The CABERNET project (PODET-MET)

Presentation

After more than 10 years of conducting simulations for the forecasting of the meteor showers, we have decided to start a new program dedicated to continuous observation of meteors. Since we are interested in the origin and the future of the meteoroids in space, our goal is to measure accurate orbits of meteors. For this, we need at least two stations that will observe the same portion of the sky, in order to measure a parallax, and observe the event from two different point of view. This is the reason why we have decided to create a network of cameras. Many networks already existing are based on the operation of Watec cameras, having a reasonable sensitivity, but a poor space resolution. Our idea was to develop a system having both a high space and time resolution. This is the reason why the project is called CAmera for BEtter Resolution NETwork, or CABERNET.

The principal investigator of the whole project is Dr. Jeremie Vaubaillon (staff suported by IMCCE). The project really started when the city of Paris awarded us a "EMERGENCE 2009" grant, allowing to hire researchers, engineers and students, as well as the material we need. It has since been also supported by Paris observatory and the "Programme National de Planetologie".

I am thankful to Dr. Prakash Atreya (postdoc at IMCCE between September 2009 and February 2011) who played a important role in the choice of the solution to adopt, and overall in the development of the project. Many thanks to Dr Sylvain Bouley (postdoc at IMCCE since April 2010) for his involvement in every step of this adventure! We developed a new camera based on the LHeritier 11000 detector, having 4000x 2600 pixels. In addition, this company custom-made an electronic shutter allowing to cut the signal up to 200 times per second. So far, our default operation mode is to take one second exposure image with a 100 Hz shutter. Many thanks to B. Gaillard who customed the acquisition software for us!

First tests

The camera is mounted on a 50 mm f/1.2 cannon lens providing any 40x26° field of view. Several observation campaigns were conducted since the spring of 2010. Here is an example of Perseid meteors recorded in August 2010 with our new camerai. The first double station meteors were recorded during the 2010 Geminids campaign. The data are still under process at the time we are writing this page, but more is to come.

Locations

We are currently developing the first triple station observating base, dedicated to the measurement of meteor orbits. The first station will be installed at the Pic du Midi observatory. The second station will be located at the Guzet Neige ski resort, located 100 km east of the Pic observatory. The location for the third station has still to be defined. We are thankful for the help of the Pic du Midi staff, as well as the "Communaute de communes d'Oust" (and in particular P. Coadou)! The orientation of the camera once the location of the stations is defined is computed thanks to a software developed by M.K. Kwon (engineer student in summer 2010), available here.

The Box

The cameras will be installed outside, and will face extreme weather (-20°, 200 km/h wind, hail, rain, snow etc.). They need to be heavily shielded from all these threats. In addition, they need to be stable enough so that the measures are not corrupted. Moreover, since the detection of the meteors is based on the motion of the objects in the field of view, the box has to be stable enough to be able to operate even with a strong wind (100 km/h). As a consequence, Francois Rigaud (GEPI - Meudon Observatory) is developing a box able to efficiently protect our camera. He is helped by I. Jégouz for the software aspect of this specific work. More information about the box are found here.

Software development

The stations will be completely automated: images are taken as long as the sky is dark. Then, a program developed by I. Sauli (engineering student between April and August 2010) and called EVENTFINDER is in charge of detecting moving objects. Interesting data are then sent to IMCCE for further analyses via a protocol defined by Y. Huan (engineering student between October 2010 and February 2011). The data are stored at IMCCE and organized in a big database designed by T. Silbermann (engineering student between January and July 2011). Further analyses of the meteor, including the computation of the trajectory and the orbit are based on the work of Dr. Prakash Atreya (postdoc at IMCCE between September 2009 and February 2011).

Research

Each observation campaign is the location to better study a particular meteor shower, as long as war able to gather enough accurate data. Moreover, our goal is to study the origin of the meteor showers, and the evolution of meteoroid streams in the solar system. For this, we are helped by Dr. Prakash Atreya, Dr. Sylvain Bouley and Dr. Regina Rudawska.

Who does what in the PODET-MET / CABERNET project?