Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes

Long-exposure fireball photographs have been used to systematically record meteoroid trajectories, calculate heliocentric orbits, and determine meteorite fall positions since the mid-20th century. Periodic shuttering is used to determine meteoroid velocity, but up until this point, a separate method...

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Main Authors: Howie, R., Paxman, J., Bland, Phil, Towner, Martin, Sansom, E., Devillepoix, H.
Format: Journal Article
Published: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53356
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author Howie, R.
Paxman, J.
Bland, Phil
Towner, Martin
Sansom, E.
Devillepoix, H.
author_facet Howie, R.
Paxman, J.
Bland, Phil
Towner, Martin
Sansom, E.
Devillepoix, H.
author_sort Howie, R.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Long-exposure fireball photographs have been used to systematically record meteoroid trajectories, calculate heliocentric orbits, and determine meteorite fall positions since the mid-20th century. Periodic shuttering is used to determine meteoroid velocity, but up until this point, a separate method of precisely determining the arrival time of a meteoroid was required. We show it is possible to encode precise arrival times directly into the meteor image by driving the periodic shutter according to a particular pattern-a de Bruijn sequence-and eliminate the need for a separate subsystem to record absolute fireball timing. The Desert Fireball Network has implemented this approach using a microcontroller driven electro-optic shutter synchronized with GNSS UTC time to create small, simple, and cost-effective high-precision fireball observatories with submillisecond timing accuracy.
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format Journal Article
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:54:53Z
publishDate 2017
publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-533562017-10-20T03:22:16Z Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes Howie, R. Paxman, J. Bland, Phil Towner, Martin Sansom, E. Devillepoix, H. Long-exposure fireball photographs have been used to systematically record meteoroid trajectories, calculate heliocentric orbits, and determine meteorite fall positions since the mid-20th century. Periodic shuttering is used to determine meteoroid velocity, but up until this point, a separate method of precisely determining the arrival time of a meteoroid was required. We show it is possible to encode precise arrival times directly into the meteor image by driving the periodic shutter according to a particular pattern-a de Bruijn sequence-and eliminate the need for a separate subsystem to record absolute fireball timing. The Desert Fireball Network has implemented this approach using a microcontroller driven electro-optic shutter synchronized with GNSS UTC time to create small, simple, and cost-effective high-precision fireball observatories with submillisecond timing accuracy. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53356 10.1111/maps.12878 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. restricted
spellingShingle Howie, R.
Paxman, J.
Bland, Phil
Towner, Martin
Sansom, E.
Devillepoix, H.
Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes
title Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes
title_full Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes
title_fullStr Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes
title_full_unstemmed Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes
title_short Submillisecond fireball timing using de Bruijn timecodes
title_sort submillisecond fireball timing using de bruijn timecodes
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53356