Tagged: perseids

Detecting the Perseids Meteor Shower with an RTL-SDR Passive Radar

Amateur radio hobbyist EB3FRN has made a post on his blog showing how he was able to use an RTL-SDR to act as a passive radar and detect meteors from the Perseids meteor shower. To do this he tuned to 143.050 MHz which is the the frequency of the Graves radar, a French space surveillance radar used to spot satellites and detect their orbits. He then used the Baudline software to record the radar signal scatters which occur when a meteor reflects the Graves radar signal.

Graves Radar - 2013 Perseids Meteor Shower

Perseids Meteor Reflection Observations with the RTL-SDR

In this video YouTube user ek6rsc shows a timelapse of meteor reflection observations during the yearly Perseids meteor shower which occurred in 2013 during August 10-15. To do this he uses an R820T RTL-SDR tuned to 59.25 MHz, and the HROFFT software to do the recording.

Meteors entering the atmosphere can cause radio frequency reflections which may allow extremely distant radio signals to be received briefly. Reception of such a signal may be a good indicator that a meteor has fallen. A good informational guide on meteor scatter with the RTL-SDR can be found in this pdf file by Marcus Leech.

2013 Perseids Aug10-15 radio observations Meteor reflection 59.25Mhz