Szasz, C.1, Kero, J.1, Pellinen-Wannberg, A.1, Meisel, D. D.2, Wannberg, G.3 and Westman, A.3
1 Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden
2 SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, NY, USA
3 EISCAT Scientific Association, Kiruna, Sweden
The purpose of this study is to investigate the conditions for simultaneous meteor observations with the EISCAT UHF radar system and telescopic optical devices. The meteor luminosity is calculated as a part of a meteoroid ablation model using a fifth order Runge-Kutta numerical integration technique. The observed characteristics for 400 tristatic meteoroids are compared with model simulations and their luminosity is estimated. The luminosity of our targets gives us a hint of the necessary requirements of an optical device able to detect them. No simultaneous HPLA (high-power large-aperture) radar head echo and optical observations have hitherto succeeded, due to the low light emission levels of typical HPLA radar meteors. Having both types of observations of the same meteors would be of great importance in further understanding of the meteoroid-atmosphere interaction processes and the physics of the head echo.