Monday, January 12, 2009

All Sky Cameras Keep All Night Watch

Computer controlled "all sky cameras" have popped up all over the United States and Canada providing a continuous watch for meteors and fireballs as they streak across the sky.

The setup for these cameras come in a variety of methods. In most cases they have some sort of fish eye type lens that provides a view over the entire sky. These cameras are then connected to a recording device that allows one to go back and review the data. Image analysis software usually allow azimuth information, and perhaps even sky charts to be super imposed, to allow for easy analysis.

Some more sophisticated setups may have automatic motion detection software that not only keeps track of meteor count, but also deter nines origin and track across the sky.

There are also many all sky cameras that feed their images directly to the internet, like this sky camera from the University of Arizona. This is a good one because, on most nights the skies are clear, and you get a good view of the sky.

I think "all sky cameras" are pretty neat. Not only would you be able to sleep peacefully at night and still be on the lookout for meteors, but you would also perhaps catch the UFO. You would thing that with all of these cameras out in the field, at least one or two would have spotted a UFO.

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