Current Status

The Manastash Ridge radar observed a large number of meteors during the 2001 Geminid meteor shower.

Highlights of these data are primarily the observation of scatter from many small meteors. Most of the meteors appear to be traveling less than +/- 250 m/s with ranges varying widely between about 75 to 1000 km.

The radar has been operating for four years now with many changes during this time. The most recent of these was the installation of new digitizers from Echotek Corp. These digital receivers allow us to take data on up to four channels at one time, and afford a much greater level of sensitivity than we enjoyed with the previous version of the recievers.

One receiver is deployed at the University of Washington while the other is deployed at Manastash Ridge Observatory. The current system consists of matched digital receivers with two GPS clocks for time synchronization. Data acquisition is automated using python and the processed data is delivered directly to the Web for use by the space science community.