The 2012 geminids balloon-borne mission over Spain

Abstract

Observing meteors from the stratosphere improves detection efficiency thanks to much lower extinction. Previous airborne missions have already monitored meteor outbursts. However due to their cost these missions are not suitable for annual meteor shower maxima. Thus meteor video detection with low-light cameras on-board weather balloons is a good approach to observe meteors in such ideal conditions [2]. The SPanish Meteor Network (SPMN) has 25 video and CCD observing stations currently operational [3-5]. The recording of multi-stations meteors and fireballs each night is only jeopardised by bad weather conditions. However the addition of balloon observations can improve observational results with bad weather during meteor maxima. During the Geminids 2012 activity peak the Fireball and Meteor group of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid[6] launched a balloon in collaboration with Proyecto Daedalus [1]. During that night the sky was unfortunately covered in several SPMN stations of central Spain. However the camera on-board our balloon detected several Geminids from the troposphere and the stratosphere, allowing double-station detection with stations with clear skies located over more distant SPMN stations in the Iberian Peninsula.