MALBEC: fine-tuning of the pointing direction of cameras for stratospheric double-station observation of meteor showers

Abstract

ABSTRACT To guarantee the successful observation of a meteor shower, the ‘Meteor Automated Light Balloon Experimental Camera’ will put two meteor cameras aboard stratospheric nacelles, at altitudes where clouds can no longer hinder the observation. After simulating the 3D trajectory of each nacelle and checking the overall feasibility of double-station meteor observation, the attitude of each camera is set and different configurations are explored. It often happens in meteor sciences that the two cameras are pointing towards each other. However, we show that an azimuth offset sometimes better suits the observation constraints and yields a high number of observed double-station meteors. A roll offset of the camera might be applied in order to maximize the atmosphere area overlap by the two cameras. Similarly, to increase the size of the field of view or to decrease the elevation of the camera, both result in a higher number of detected meteors, as expected. However, this comes with a loss of spatial resolution, which decreases the number of accurate measurements of meteoroid orbits. A satisfactory compromise is to increase the time of flight thanks to ceiling-balloon capabilities. In addition, we find that the current method used to compute the expected number of meteors from a stratospheric platform underestimates this number. More work is needed to understand the link between visual ground-based observations and stratospheric video records.