Astronomer Photographs Meteor Through Telescope

Matt Rogers writes "Amateur astronomer Mike Hankey may be the first person on earth to take a picture of a fireball meteor through a telescope. The picture has been confirmed authentic by numerous professional astronomers and asteroid hunters. This picture could possibly be the first of its kind. Taking a picture of a meteor is a very difficult thing to do, taking a picture of a meteor through a telescope is near impossible. The hunt is on in southern PA for the meteorites that broke away from this space rock. Using Hankey's picture, as well as security tape, meteorite hunters have been able to narrow down the crash site to a smaller area. Even with the trajectory roughly determined, professional meteorite hunters think finding these meteorites may be near impossible. However if they are found they will be immensely valuable and could be very large."

Comments

Meteor photography without telescope common

[syousef]

It's common for amateur astronomers to do meteor photography but they do not use telescopes. Instead they use wide angle lenses on a camera to improve their chances of a meteor being caught on film (digital or otherwise). The reason it hasn't been done before is that it would be very frustrating and you'd need to take a lot of pictures before statistically expecting to capture one meteor. Despite that I'm very surprised it hasn't been done before (and I have a degree in Astronomy, though I must admit meteors were never one of my principle interests).

Clearly it's exciting because if you can get a closer look at something you can learn more about it. As for it being just a streak, I doubt there's a camera on Earth that'll catch anything more than a streak using current techniques. Meteors are both faint and very fast moving. Either one you can compensate for but both...that's a challenge.