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The Corkscrew Meteor
startleman writes "Over on Space.com is an interesting image of a corkscrew meteor. 'On Jan. 1, 1986, [Jimmy Westlake] was photographing [Halley's comet] through his homemade 8-inch reflecting telescope..."About one minute into the exposure, I watched a meteor zip through the field of the telescope." When he developed the roll of slide film, he was astounded that '...Crossing the tail of Halley's comet was a corkscrew meteor trail with no fewer than 25 twists in it.' Westlake's photo was never published until today. He wonders if there are others out there."
The meteor appears about 1 minute into the exposure, but it doesn't take 1 minute for the meteor to cross the field of exposure, which is what you are implying by your "half a hertz" oscillation theory.
Now, the motors could have had a 60 hertz "hum" and the meteor was in the frame for just under half a second. That cycle rate is common for AC in North America, and I can belive a meteor streaking across the sky in half a second more than I can believe it streaked across the sky in a whole minute.