This video is my first attempt at building a meteor detection system for use during the perseids meteor shower. The key components are the rtl sdr dongle that has the rtl2832 and 820t or 820t2 chips inside and a j. We operate a dedicated 247 meteor detection system, with multiple highly sensitive ground stations. Despite its age, this is still considered a classic reference by many radio meteor observers. I also refer to this system as my cloud filter as it allows me to peer through the clouds and seehear meteors. Meteor and colorgramme, an automatic radiometeor detection meteor and display colorgramme software package developed for the pc platform by pierre terrier and philippe boeuf respectively.
Mike is interested in very small meteors which we cant usually observe with conventional cameras nor with the radar, but they can still present danger to astronauts and satellites in orbit. Thanks to gmbertani for letting us know about his recently released rtlsdr compatible software called echoes. This process also ionises the air along the trail making it. A software application based on an algorithm created by a nasa challenge has the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers. Meteor and colorgramme, an automatic radiometeor detection meteor and display colorgramme. Software for counting meteor reflections with radio. Meteor scatter ms is the reflection of radio signals from the ionised trails from meteors iron rocks burning up in the upper atmosphere. Since that time, my father and i have improved our equipment and observed many major meteor showers. Radio observations offer a particularly exciting opportunity to engage visually impaired students, but participating in meteor counts, either visual or radiobased, could be a great activity for students too and is something you can try at home.
Inexpensive implementations allow hobbyists to dedicate sdr devices for various experiments such as monitoring radio echoes. The purpose of this software is to analyse the automatic realtime waterfalls from hdsdr looking for radio signals present on enduser preconfigured frequencies, see screenshots below for a better explanation. This tool can be used to count the number of meteors entering the atmosphere which have been detected by a meteor scatter setup using an rtlsdr or similar sdr. Radiometeor information, observing networks and software roswellmeteor near real time meteor and solar monitoring from new mexico and iowa stan nelson. When a meteor strikes earths atmosphere it decelerates rapidly. Of course, logging all this data to a hard disk would be difficult, so they use realtime analysis software to determine whether an event is meteor scatter, and then log only the relevant features of. Bolidozor distributed radio meteor detection system. This program permits the calculation of the performance of. To hear the greatest number of meteors try listening between 3am and 9am central standard time 0900 1500 ut. Meteor dos and colorgramme are some freespecialized software in the detection and registration of echoes radio products by meteors shower falling star at the time of their gone in atmospheric. These specular reflections offer alternative observing methods and. Hi all, we are two phd students from the university of western ontario and we are doing our research in the field of meteor physics.
Still, the software presented here is functional and may even be more suitable. This distance usually gives the longest duration signal. Way back when dos was king and the web was young we played with pierre terriers software. Much more detail on the basics of meteor detection using the. Meteorrelated software imo international meteor organization. Meteor detection with radio orions view astro imaging.
A tool for counting meteor detections with an rtlsdr thanks to wolfgang kaufmann for submitting news about his new software called meteor logger. The unsupported mct5x dos software for squelch detection with fm radio and xt or faster. In 1998, when i was a 10thgrade student at villa walsh academy in morristown, new jersey, i set up an observatory for the radio detection of meteors using the forward scatter of the signal from an fm radio station. Meteor detection presents a problem of sizable proportions. Maintaining it and fixing bugs on the fly has been a lot of work and during certain sensationalised news. Diy meteor camera system posted in vendor and group announcements. Meteor shower, aurora and sporadice detection using radio signal reflection, a wide variety of radio meteor information provided by andy smith g7izu. Tehrasha from the comments section has found a page by tim havens showing a little information on his. I see that there is current update but ive not used it here. For forwardscatter detection to work, the reciever and transmitter need to be far. For the software he uses spectrum lab and sdrsharp.
Software for meteor detection and visualisation of observations. We are a group of amateur astronomers and radio enthusiasts with a special interest in meteor detection and radio astronomy. An easy way to try meteor scatter or meteor burst reception is by monitoring the over the air digital television pilot carrier signals. Meteor scatter communications for amateur radio meteor scatter communications is a form of radio propagation used by ham radio operators using with modes including high speed morse and wsjt fsk441 for contacts over distances up to about 2000km. But you can also detect signals reflected off meteors from stations between 200 km 400 mi and 2100 km 0 mi possibly even closer or farther away. How to use meteor scatter communications in ham radio. Meteor science and engineering, by d w r mckinley, mcgrawhill book company inc, 1961. Vhf radio waves are sometimes affected by an unusual form of ionosphere propagation called sporadic e.
I see the live screen but where has the numerical count data gone. Welcome to our meteor detection and radio astronomy pages. The device is the basic sdr receiver set for radio detection of meteor trails. Those are the hours around dawn in alabama where the radio meteor detection system is located. Detecting meteor radio echoes using the rtlsdr usb dongle author. The ideal source of radio signals in that band should be continuous and powerful. Radio meteor where you will find meteor and cologramme wmeteor software on the potential meteors elfvlf radiations, jeanlouis rault, f6agr. If you see and hear sometimes a strong continuous signal that runs for more than a minute or so, that is unlikely to be a meteor echo.
Meteor particles as small as 3 or 4mm can be visually seen. This article describes recent experiments with the software defined radio equipment known as the funcube dongle fcd1 to determine its usefulness as the receiver in a meteor scatter radar. Echoes is a windows, linux and raspberry piarch compatible tool that can be used together with an rtlsdr and appropriate antenna to monitor for meteor scatter detections. Detecting meteor radio echoes using the rtlsdr usb dongle. The ideal frequency range for continuous meteor detection using forward scatter is between 40 and 70 mhz. Various software packages are available related to meteors and meteor data. Radio detection rates of meteors tend to be higher than visual observation rates. The most intense of these is the arietids which peak each year around june 8. This effect can be used by radio amateurs to make contacts at distances of up to around 2,200km. The space environments team at nasas marshall space flight center has developed a forward scatter radar system for the monitoring of meteor rates. This newly developed piece of software detects audio signals from radio meteors via sound card. This is a program of radio amateurs for the prediction of meteor scatter. Rtlsdr rtl2832u and software defined radio news and projects.
This program permits the calculation of the performance of yagi antennas. Hot ionised air is more reflective to radio waves, and so if the meteor passes through a strong radio beam, reflections from the ionisation trail may be detected using a radio receiver. Metrec meteor recognizer is a software package for the automatic detection and. Tim uses a stock r820t dongle, and a 6 element yagi antenna with lna. Meteor detection with the rtlsdr softwaredefined radio. Many radio meteor observers take data at very high rates 10 readings per second to catch as many meteors as possible. Detected audio signals are recorded with a high frequency and temporal resolution. You can use your fm radio to detect meteors as they enter the earths atmosphere. This frequency shift can be detected by a suitable cw or ssb receiver and can be captured and analysed by software such as spectrum lab. When a meteor appeared, some of the radio waves that would have gone into space. Meteor detection a meteor occurs when a meteoroid comet debris or asteroid fragment strikes earths atmosphere at high speed. New to meteor detecting radio astronomy and spectroscopy. Each radiodetection cable locator is designed to provide the best locate performance for damage prevention professionals working in all industries and utilities. How to build a radio telescope see satellites 35,000km away.
The software defined radio sdr has become a popular concept for radio astronomers and radio amateurs. Youtube user tim havens has uploaded two videos showing his meteor detection results with an rtlsdr dongle. It analyses an incoming audio stream in the frequency domain to detect a radio meteor signal on the basis of its signature, instead of applying an amplitude threshold. For best results, you need to choose a radio station that is about 0 km 800 mi away.
The friction created by the air causes the meteor to burn up at extremely high temperatures creating the white shooting star that we are all familiar with. During this event which can last hours or even days, the radio signal originating from the distant station. You still need some basic computer skills to configure the software and some diy. Bolidozor distributed radio meteor detection system jakub kakona 1, pavel kovar, martin kakona 2 1 dept. The approach exploits the property of ionized trails to reflect radio waves and the use of bistatic radar and forward scattering. Freeware software for meteor detection radio astronomy.
Diy meteor camera system vendor and group announcements. Meteor dos and colorgramme are some free specialized software in the detection and registration of echoes radio products by meteors shower falling. Meteor radio wave reflections are also called meteor echoes or events. They are destined to all possessors of a radio and a computer, interested parties by this simple technique of radioastronomy. In this paper we present a setup of a data acquisition daq system based on software defined radio. It can be used both to inspect video tapesdvd offline, and to do online recognition for an automated video system. There are two main radio observing methods, backscatter and forwardscatter. As the meteor burns up on entry, atmospheric gases are ionized creating conditions that will reflect line of sight radio waves over the horizon from distant radio stations where they normally wont travel. The technique involves the use of a distant radio transmittera transmitter that is beyond the usual ground.
One of the pieces of astronomical lore i have heard for many years is that an fm radio can be used to detect meteors. Radio meteor detection system posted in observational astrophysics. Rmds01a device is the basic sdr receiver set for radio detection of meteor trails. For many years the video carrier of analog tv transmitters has been the best choice for forward meteor scatter monitors, especially channels 2 5 see table 1. We provide results of processed signals obtained by our system. Radio meteor observing allows continuous meteor observations to be made. If monitoring any of the above cw carrier frequencies using spectrumlab or similar software, you will most likely need to be in usb mode and therefore around 800 hz lower in displayed frequency than quoted i. It is aimed to the radio meteor enthusiast who wants to get out the most information of his forward scatter radio observations in a strict numerical form.
We have been running a beta test of our sophisticated meteor detection software for just over a year now. Compared to other methods, its main advantage is in fact, that it uses softwaredefined receiver, that enables various advanced signal processing techniques. Radio meteor detection system observational astrophysics. Intense heat is created by the compression of the air ahead of the meteoroid, which usually causes the object to burn up in the atmosphere, creating the white shooting star that we are all familiar with. Listed under the softwarelegacy systemsms dos category that is about ms dos amateur radio programs. Forward scatter radar has been used extensively for characterization of the meteoroid environment. Echoes its a radio spectral analysis software for rtlsdr devices, designed for meteor scattering purposes. For this purpose signal detection relies on identifying signal signatures in the. Radio meteor detection the june 2017 issue of the astronomical league reflector had an interesting article about someones participation in the radio astronomy observing program. I thought i would share some details about my radio meteor detection system in case anyone is interested and also i am curious if anyone has any thoughts about some of my results. Download radio meteor software ars electromagnetica. Meteor detection with the rtlsdr youtube user tim havens has uploaded two videos showing his meteor detection results with an rtlsdr dongle. Meteor radar sdr receiver british astronomical association. Posted in radio astronomy, rtlsdr tagged with graves, meteor detection, radio.
1280 973 599 110 6 894 1069 723 364 316 431 848 570 308 974 132 1410 1040 663 58 743 501 1127 894 464 1444 803