Perseids 2009

That year - as in 2007 - we participated in an observing campaign organised by the DLR Berlin. We went to the Observatory Kanzelhöhe in Austria, where the staff was kind enough to offer us their infrastructure.

The team

The team was:

  • Detlef Koschny (ESA/RSSD)
  • Andre Knöfel (IMO)
  • Hakan Svedhem (ESA/RSSD) - part time 

Planned activities

We did the following:

  • Use the SPOSH camera for simultaneous observations of a similar camera located in Northern Austria
  • Test our new SPOSH-IR, our new infrared camera for meteor observations

Schedule

  • 08 Aug 2009: Detlef picks up Andre at Munich airport
  • 09 Aug 2009: Arrival Detlef + Andre at Kanzelhöhe Observatory
  • 09/10 Aug 2009: First test run of SPOSH camera 
  • 10 Aug 2009: Arrival Hakan
  • 10/11 Aug 2009: SPOSH in regular operation; testing SPOSH-IR
  • 11/12 Aug 2009: as before
  • 12/13 Aug 2009: as before - maximum of the Perseids predicted for 12 Aug 2009, 20 h - 21 h UTC
  • 13 Aug 2009: Departure Hakan
  • 13/14 Aug 2009: Final observing night with SPOSH 
  • 14 Aug 2009: Departure Detlef + Andre 

Summary

We successfully provided data to the observing campaign, which was later analyzed by our colleagues from DLR. Our SPOSH-IR was used but didn't get any good results. It turned out that it is not properly focussed. We are working on fixing this.