Mike's Astro Photos

I contacted a commercial satellite company and asked them if they had recent images of the Mason Dixon Meteor estimated crash area. I gave them the coordinates and told them I needed images that were taken on or after July 6th (the day the meteor crashed). They wrote me back and said they had images that were taken on July 5th! That is a very weird coincidence. I can’t believe they missed it by one day. At the same time, I think this could be a sign and potentially very valuable. If I could find another satellite imagery company that happened to have images from after July 6th I would have super fresh before and after photos. If there was any sort of impact crater (which is possible with a basket ball sized meteorite that still has some cosmic velocity) it might show up on these photos.

I’m ordering the July 5th photos so I have them as they will still provide me with value. I can also do a custom shoot from the satellite but they are saying it will take 1-2 months to acquire. If there were visible signs there is a much greater chance they would be gone in another 2 months, plus I can’t wait that long.

If you know of any good custom satellite image companies please let me know through a comment.

Observation Deck

I started planning construction of an observatory a week after I got my first telescope. I quickly learned that the 4 hours it took to setup and tear down my 11-inch SCT was a real drag on observing. My first few months as an astronomer I spent more time setting up and tearing down than I did star gazing. Not to mention the fact that I have about 150 lbs of gear.

My wife and I were simultaneously planning a new patio construction so I bundled the observatory in with that project, spent about 3 months planning and had everything ready to go. The start date for the project was July 6th, 2009. For the patio and stone work we went with Edge Landscapes out of Hartford County. They did an amazing job. In addition to the patio under our deck, I wanted to put in an observation area so that I would have a place to hang out and do casual viewing and tripod photography while the scope inside the observatory was busy shooting pictures.

Orion's Belt Yard Plan

We had already put in a big Gazebo on the deck next to the house, so I wanted the observation deck centered in the backyard and the observatory tucked away next to the propery line. The gazebo, the observation deck and the observatory would make three points and I decided it would be cool if they modeled Orion’s belt. That way when the aliens flew over, they would be like “look at that guy, he knows what he’s doing.” I had a plat of my backyard and a lot of engineering documents the landscape architect had given us, so I scanned these into the computer and found a picture of Orion. I resized the Orion picture to be in scale with my backyard and then I played with the design in photoshop over a few days and several hours. I finally had it setup perfect. I then spent another few hours measuring the distance and surveying the yard to mark the spots as best I could.

My wife really didn’t like the Orion’s belt idea, she thought it was stupid to plan your backyard landscaping around a constellation. She thought the design compromised utility in favor of quirkiness. I personally struggled with the decision and changed my mind back and forth 5 or 6 times. Ultimately I felt an overwhelming desire, a gut feeling, a need that the observatory and observation deck stayed true to the Orion’s Belt plan. My wife said I was crazy, but reluctantly agreed. When I told Travis our landscaper about my plan, I really think he thought I was crazy but I could also tell he thought the idea was kinda cool. Before construction began I setup my scope at the exact location where the star Alnitak would be. I put in a lot of time to get this position just right and once I had it figured out it felt perfect.

Stone Compass

Travis started working the day I took the Mason Dixon Meteor photo and finished up about three weeks ago. Once he finished with the patio work I had another team of carpenters, Ivy and Gordan come in and start construction on the observatory. I bought plans for a roll off roof observatory from skyshed.com . The plans these guys have are incredible and only $50. I had Ivy and Gordan dig the hole for the pier exactly where my scope was the night I took the picture.  Ivy and Gordan are still working on the observatory, but we are close to completion. We poured the concrete for the pier last week (3000lbs) and they just finished putting up the walls today.  The sad thing is, I had contracted all this work before the picture and now I realize I have already hit my peak as an astro photographer .  I’ve only used my scope 1-2 times since I got hit in the head by this meteor and I’ve passed up some great dark nights outside to instead sit in front of the computer and pour over Google Earth, trajectory data and eye witness reports. I really want to find this damn meteor so I can get back to astronomy.

Taking down scope for first time since photo (fake crying)

The weird thing about all of this is the compulsion I felt to make Orion’s Belt in my backyard was so strong I couldn’t even understand it, but I did it anyway. It overwellingly felt like the right thing to do. I really believe that if I had picked any other place in my backyard to place my telescope I would not have taken the Mason Dixon Meteor picture. The same compulsion I felt to make Orion’s Belt, I feel in regard to finding this meteor. I can’t explain it, I don’t know why I’m doing this, I have much better things to do with my time, but for some reason it just feels like the right thing to do. It feels like the amazingly right thing to do.

Hole for concrete pier

About two weeks ago I bought a hikers GPS to help me with work in the field. The first thing I wanted to do with it was get an exact reading of where my telescope was the night I took the picture. I took the GPS out to my scope location for the first practical application (I hadn’t moved my scope since the picture was taken (over 30 days at this point)).

The GPS coordinates on this GPS are represented as decimal numbers for the longitude and latitude. I was surprised when I looked at the coordinates nearly 30 days after I had taken the original photo. The last 3 digits of the longitude were 777.  I asked Rob Matson what cooridinates he was using and his were the same as mine. Steve Arnold had used a GPS on my scope while he was out at my house, but I hadn’t noticed. Steve’s longitude reading also ended with 777.

I got an email today from a meteorite enthusiast named George. George disputed the authenticity of my meteor picture. He suggested the following at the conclusion of a lengthy unresolved debate.

My suggestion though is to not use your photo for any source of finding a strewnfield. I think you would have better luck in the long run.

When I got home I emailed Dirk Ross (Tokyo) from Lunar Meteorite Hunters Blog and asked him to give me a call. Dirk has been helping me out with the meteorite hunt and he really knows his stuff. I told Dirk about the email exchange I had with George and he told me that when my picture first surfaced it was immediately scrutinized. There were dozens of emails on the meteorite list with the subject “Astro Mike”. All of the hardcore meteorite dudes were debating whether or not my picture was really a meteor and not something else (like a plane). There were basically two camps: the believers and the doubters. Because the opinion was initially disputed the trajectory experts were not considering the data obtained from my picture at all. Dirk Ross was one of these meteor trajectory wizards and he plotted an impact zone days after the fall. Dirk with the help of Elton Jones and others plotted the trajectory estimate and impact zone using only the York Water meteor video and eye witness reports.

Unfortunately no one listened to Dirk and instead they went with a ‘due east’ trajectory past York. This resulted in 100s of lost video recordings of the meteor. The city of Lancaster alone apparently recently installed a security system that has cameras on every street corner in the city (thanks for letting me know this M Gaines). Security video recordings are usually only saved for 7 days and then overwritten. The ground work to look for security cameras was focused in the York area. No security videos were ever recovered from Lancaster. No matter, two new videos did surface: Safe Harbor and the Pittsburgh fireball video.  The Pittsburgh video (also found by Dirk), shows 3 stars and the planet Jupiter. This stellar information in combination with my stellar picture and the York Water Fireball Video and Safe Harbor videos gave Rob Matson and Marc Fries abnormally good data for a fireball trajectory.

Here is the kicker: Dirk Ross’s initial impact point is roughly 10 miles from the impact point Marc Fries and Rob Matson calculated using ALL of the video evidence. Dirk, that is pretty darn good.

George thanks for doubting my picture. Looking at Dirk’s data makes me feel extra special confident about the location we are working in right now. I wouldn’t have run into this new data if we hadn’t had our email debate.

Here are the Google Earth maps that show both Dirk Ross’s projection (using only York and eye witnesses) and Rob Matson/Marc Fries projection (using all available data).

Dirk Ross vs Rob Matson & Marc Fries (click to enlarge)

Dirk Ross vs Rob Matson & Marc Fries (click to enlarge)

I get this organic ice tea for lunch everyday that has fortunes on the bottle caps. I got a good one today that really validates a personal belief I have always held:

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic. — unknown

Ever since this meteor thing started I have been having dreams about meteors. They aren’t always the same dream, they seem to be different. I wake up and say wow that was a cool dream but I can never remember them. I can only remember one meteor dream I’ve had and that’s because I really thought it through and played it back in my head a few times right after I woke up. I’m running through a field with my wife and kids and there are giant meteors falling from the sky and hitting the ground all around us.  We are running to get away from being hit, I’m scared. I remember seeing a 6 foot tall meteor lying on the ground and thinking get me the hell out of here — I don’t want anything to do with that!

I headed up to search zone orange after work tonight and a friend of mine sent me a text that said:

I had a dream early this morning around 4:am. We found a piece of the meteor. All I can remember is it was near a fence just off a busy road. Crazy right?

Needless to say I was looking at fences as I patrolled all the roads in the search area.

Bird in Hand Search Zones

I have cut up the entire search area into 5 zones: green, yellow, blue, orange and red. The areas are primarly based on public street boundaries and logical lines along the path of the meteor between the 10km and 5km altitudes. East of the trajectory line are zones that encompass areas suggested by Marc Fries to have meteorites of various sizes based on weight.  Smaller sized meteorites would have blown farther east while larger rocks would be closer to the trajectory line, but still east of it. I have included zones south and west of the lines as there is a margin of error in the data we have and it is important to cover areas on both sides of the trajectory to compensate for inaccuracies of the data provided. Marc and Rob stressed to me that these areas are estimates based on the data we have about this thing. They are not exact, but rather the best information we have to go on at this point in time. Special thanks to Marc Fries for developing the dark flight model. Marc I am in awe of your kung fu skillz.

Currently the highest priority zones are red and orange. I will be posting more detailed annotated maps as soon as I have the time to put them together.

10kg search area landmark

I only had a couple of hours to search tonight so I went right to the orange zone where the largest rocks (if there are any) would most likely be found. Needless to say I didn’t find any, but I did have a great talk with the land owner and he let me search right there on the spot. He said I could come back as much as needed so long as I respected the land and stayed out of the crop areas. He said I could search those in 3 months when the harvest was completed.

Since the begining of this adventure I have wanted to share all of the information I have about the meteor event and the possible where abouts of the meteorites. A lot of very brilliant people have worked hard to aquire and analyze all of the data used to project the path and determine the impact point and the possible strewn field location. Rob Matson a scientist and meteorite enthusist compiled and analyzed the data and wrote a computer program in Fortran to create a 3D model of the Mason Dixon Meteor. Rob has been sharing his data with me for a few weeks now and I asked him yesterday if it would be ok to make the information public. He agreed that making all of the information publicly available would greatly increase the chances of recovering the meteorites.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to all of the people that worked hard to help Rob develop this model including: Marc Fries, Dirk Ross, Elton Jones, Steve Arnold, Ruben Garcia, Eric Whicman, Mike Antonelli, Derik Bower, John Divelbiss, Safe Harbor Power Corp, York Water Company, Alison Kruse and everyone else that helped with this (lmk if I forgot about you and I’ll add you to the list).

Rob wanted me to make it clear that this data is an estimate based on the reports and analysis of the cameras and angles that captured the meteor. His 3d model is only as good as the field reports and data going in. Despite this disclaimer, Rob feels very confident about the model and his location and angle is consistent with numerous eye witness reports. In his words:

You have my okay on it. I would reiterate Marc’s comments that my modeling predictions are only as good as the information that goes into them. But that said, the current information is unusually good for a fireball; in particularly, I don’t know of any previous bolide that was serendipitously observed by a telescope.

Here is a Google Earth movie that illustrates the Mason Dixon Meteor’s 3D model.

Here are the coordinates Rob came up with for his model:

Latitude Longitude  Alt
——– ——— —–
39.29389 -76.53562 100.0
39.37501 -76.49368  90.0
39.45649 -76.45145  80.0
39.53833 -76.40893  70.0
39.62054 -76.36610  60.0
39.70311 -76.32297  50.0
39.78606 -76.27954  40.0
39.86938 -76.23580  30.0
39.95307 -76.19174  20.0
40.03714 -76.14737  10.0
40.12160 -76.10268   0.0

I will be posting detailed search maps as well as Marc Fries proposed strewn field map in the days to come.

Kaufmans Fruit Market - Meteorite Search Landmark

Today was the first day I searched the area suggested by Rob Matson and Marc Fries. I drove up to Bird in Hand PA in the morning with my neighbor Mark Dodson. We met up with John Divelbiss, a fellow meteorite hunter from Redding PA who has been scoping out the area for a few days already. The target area is based on a 3D model of the meteor flight path that was created by Rob Matson and a strewn field map developed by Marc Fries. This is the first area suggested that takes into consideration data from all recorded evidence: the Pittsburgh video, the Safe Harbor video, the York Water video and my picture. Marc’s map was based on Rob’s initial data plus calculations for the initial velocity, drag, wind as well as meteorite type, size and weight.

Farms off N Harvest Road

My primary objective was to make contact with as many land owners as possible. I prepared an information packet and made several copies. The map I am currently working with is pretty much a square area bordered by 4 main roads with 3-4 cross streets (the cross streets are really gravel roads). I made it to about 10-12 different properties (about 1/4 of the area) and talked to land owners at all of them. All of the people I talked to were Amish farmers. None of them had heard about the meteor. All of them were very interested in the story, excited that they might have meteorite rocks on their land and they were very agreeable to the idea of people searching the land once harvest was underway. All of the farmers said to check back with them in 2-3 weeks. The harvest goes in stages so different areas of land would open up at different times. Depending on the crop there is about a 2 week window after the harvest that is ideal for searching. After this period they till and fertilize the land which makes meteorite recovery much more difficult.

Peach Orchard Below 10km Alititude Point

I gave an information packet to all of the farmers I met today. This packet included:
- a letter to land owners requesting permission to search their land
- some meteorite informational articles I wrote up
- 2 news paper articles about the meteor

As I walked from farm to farm I looked every where I could for meteorites but didn’t find anything. While I was talking to the land owners, Mark and John walked the roads checking the ditches and grass by the side of the road. They knocked on a few different doors. A few people wouldn’t come to the door or talk to them, but they did talk to a few others that were very interested. One farmer let them search an alfalfa field that had just been cut. They didn’t find anything but they covered a lot of ground and got the word out with at least 10 different people in the community.

It wasn't a meteor...

In the afternoon we all went to an orchard that John had spotted a few days before and had been searching. The orchard was more or less open to the public and an easy and relaxing search. Most of the area under the trees was just dirt with no vegetation or grass. In between the tree rows was relatively low grass. It was a peach orchard and the rotting peaches on the ground turn black and really look like meteorites from a few feet away. I can’t tell you how many black rotten peaches I stepped on today. I did find one meteor-wrong that was a new one for me. This rock had a crust around it that looked like a fusion crust, but it wasn’t magnetic. I showed it to John and he agreed it was terrestrial. I chipped away at it with a knife which you also wouldn’t be able to do to a real meteorite.

Bird in Hand Search Team

On the way out of town we drove around the area again to write down some addresses and take some notes. I’m planning on sending out a direct mail with our information packet to all of the residents in the target zone. I firmly believe in order to find these meteorites we will need the complete support of the community. These remnants will not be found by a single person it will take an army of people to eventually find them. That is why it is critical to get the word out to the community and the land owners, especially at this time. We need to search the land before it is re-tilled and fertilized for next season. Additionally autumn leaves on the ground will make searching that much harder. Time is of the essence, if we are going to find this thing we need to find it within the next 2-3 months.

Marc Fries Says What?

I talked to Rob Matson and Marc Fries tonight and asked them if it would be ok to publish their maps and models on my site. I told them I felt it was critical to get all of the information we have out to the public as finding this meteor would require a lot of foot soldiers on the ground. They agreed publishing the data was the best way to find the meteorites. Its 3AM in the morning now and it will take me some time to put the maps and information online. You can expect this in tomorrow’s update.

I’m headed out to the field to the Rob Matson & Marc Fries search area. Wish me luck.

Jupiter and Moon Aug 6th, 2009

It was a pretty clear night tonight. I saw Jupiter hanging out next to the moon and it looked like a good shot. My scope is not currently setup as I’m in the middle of construction on a new observatory, so I just snapped this pic with the tripod and camera lens.

I’ve spent most of my meteor time this week prepping for this weekend. I’ve reviewed and recorded all of the streets that cross the path. I found the PA land record website and with a little creative searching I’ve been able to get all of the property records for all of the potential estates. There aren’t that many of them, <30 tops. The records show pictures of the houses, acreage and obviously the property owners names.

I’m manipulating this data and prioritizing the targets and preparing a field agenda. I’ve found that lack of preparation before the field visits results in a lot of wasted time and effort. This weekend priority #1 will be making contact with as many land owners as possible the goal being to get permission to search the land.

I bought a hand held hikers GPS and I’m putting in coordinates of the high value targets. I’ve also teamed up with two different groups of meteorite hunters and we are coordinating our efforts and working together.  I am also working with a group of friends so that while I’m off talking to land owners they are searching the streets and public areas.

I was shooting Jupiter the night I took the meteor picture. I’ve been having problems shooting planets as I’m a new astronomer and still learning how to do it. I have taken a few DSLR shots but they don’t turn out right. I have a Celestron NexImage web cam and I was testing it out for the first time on Jupiter on July 5th, 2009. The picture is really bad and out of focus and there is only 3 seconds of video. I had taken a few minutes of video but like an idiot I kept saving over the same file name on subsequent clips, so I was only left with the last run which was about 3 seconds. With all the excitement from the meteor picture I totally forgot about even taking these videos. I remembered yesterday and checked the netbook computer I use with my scope. That’s when I saw I only had the one short clip.

The reason this is potentially interesting is because this AVI was taken before Anthony Wesley would have noticed the new black spot on Jupiter’s southern hemisphere.

The reason this is probably not interesting is because the quality is so bad you can’t really see anything.

There is a little black mark in the bottom right but i think it is just an optical effect/error from the camera. In the very last second of the video the planet moves a bit, I think this is from a nudge when I reached for the computer to turn off the clip (or something).  In this same frame a dark spot in the bottom left appears. Again I think this is just some sort of distortion caused by the camera.

This Jupiter collision made me think a little bit though… Is it possible the Mason Dixon Meteor was some how related to the object that crashed into Jupiter? Could it be a fellow asteroid that just happened to hit Earth instead of Jupiter? Could it be remnants of a comet that strayed slightly to the left or the right of Earth and hit Jupiter instead of us?

I really think this picture is so bad it has no value, but on the off chance that some expert might be able to see something in it or use it as a reference point, I figured I would put it up here. If the Anthony Wesley discovery had not happened I would have thrown this AVI in the trash.

Here is a link to the raw AVI directly off the computer with no processing or anything.

I’m going to try to use Registax to see if it makes this look any better, but I doubt it will and I can’t find the disk right now. If there is anyone out there that can stack this AVI or improve the quality of the image please lmk.

Here are two screen caps I took off the AVI.

Bad Jupiter picture from July 5th, 2009

Bad Jupiter picture from July 5th, 2009

Please let me know what you think about the PA Fireball being related to the Jupiter collision. I know the picture sucks so send the hate mail to someone else.

I got this report from Gary, a Carrol County resident, a few days ago:

“On July 26, 2009 I found an unusual rock lying on top of some mulch in my parent’s yard in north-central Maryland (Carroll County).  It is totally unlike anything in the area.  It looks like a meteorite to me.  It is gray, with irregular shape, indentations which appear to have possibly been made by hot gas, and a few small rusty spots.  The rock is about 2 inches wide.  It is slightly attracted to a strong magnet.   No one in the family had put the rock where it was found.  No digging has occurred recently around where it was found.  The region where this rock was found would be somewhat in line with your projected path of the recent meteor that may have landed near the Susquehanna River.”

I asked Gary to send me some pictures. Here they are:

My first thoughts are this is not a meteorite because:

• Meteorites are usually black with a fusion crust
• Carrol County is pretty far from the trajectory we are currently working with

I’m not a meteorite expert, so I have sent the pictures out to the meteorite community to see what they think. Comments are much appreciated.

Sunday morning I went meteorite hunting in Intercourse, PA with two friends. A lot of the other meteorite hunters have told me they gave up on trying to find the PA fireball because the terrain is too difficult. After surveying the area, it really doesn’t seem that bad. Obviously not as easy as a desert, but thanks to the two new videos we found, the area I’m working with right now is really not that big.  Once the harvest comes, these fields will actually be pretty easy to search.

We setup base camp in a quaint town and the people we met and talked to were very nice and helpful. We tried to stay away from the farmers on this outing as Sunday is the Amish day of rest and we didn’t want to bother them on their holy day. We did speak with some locals who were very helpful. I learned the names of several farmers of interest and plan on returning later. We found a few meteor-wrongs, but unfortunately no meteorites. All the same, we had a great time, learned a lot about the area and will be much more prepared the next time we head out there. We also had some of the best food I’ve had in a while. Jackey’s Amish BBQ is banging! There are a lot of interesting places and people in this part of the country. Here are a few pictures from our adventures in Intercourse.

Intercourse News Aug 2, 2009

Where would you like to go today?

Best BBQ on the East Coast

Under Armour's new product line? (click to enlarge)

Largest dealer of panties in PA.

Mike at the Amish Haven August 2nd, 2009

I didn’t go out today (Saturday) because I really did not have good data. I’ve been working with some heavy hitters on the meteorite list and they have been busy analyzing the two new videos tapes that surfaced this week. I was emailing back and forth with them Friday night and Saturday morning. I didn’t want to go out today without a good location so I decided to work on my maps and trajectory information, rest and go shopping instead. I picked up some good new gear today. Some maps and hiking books, a hikers GPS (so money!), some insect repellent and a few other things.

Before I left to go shopping I got an email from Rob Matson that said he had completed his analysis and had the data I needed. I’ve got a pretty good location of the impact zone and I’m working on my strewn field map. I’m hoping Marc Fries will come through with an updated treasure map before I head out tomorrow. Thanks a million to both Rob and Marc, what they have been able to do and come up with literally blows my mind.

I’m not at liberty to release the precise information but they have encouraged me to publish a close proximity to where the meteorites are most likely to be found. The more people that are out there the better our chances of finding at least 1 rock. The first rock we find will lead us to others, so I really want as many people on the ground looking for these things as possible.

Tomorrows hot zone based on the very best information that is out there are: New Holland, Bareville, Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand PA.

August 2nd, 2009 Meteor Search Map (Click to enlarge)

I found a biking trail that is very near the bulls eye. There is definately a margin of error with the bulls eye so this biking trail looks like a very good place to search. It is a free and public place so you won’t have to deal with land owners. I highly recommend it. I have been told it is best to try to walk a north / south or south / north path. This will improve your chances of actually crossing the trajectory and thus recovering meteorites.