This example video [233 MByte, avi format] shows the results from one camera in the night of November 1. Early in the night, clouds obscure the stars. Airplanes are seen passing through the field of view. Later, the sky clears and numerous meteors are being detected.

Key Personnel:

Dr. Peter Jenniskens,
SETI Institute, Principal Investigator
[email];
[Career pages]

Peter S. Gural,
S.A.I.C., meteor detection algoritms
[email]

Matt Day and Lorena Perez,
Border Collie Solutions, Inc., video surveillance
[email]

Rick Morales,
Fremont Peak Observatory
[email]

Bryant Grigsby,
Support Astronomer at Mt. Hamilton's Lick Observatory
[Career pages]

Jeremie Vaubaillon,
Observatoire de Paris, France, Meteor stream dynamics modelling
[email]
[Career pages]

David Nesvorny,
SWRI, Boulder, zodiacal dust cloud modelling
[Career pages]

Mission statement - CAMS is an automated video surveillance of the night sky in search of meteors to validate minor showers in the IAU Working List of Meteor Showers. Stations are located in California. [Contact]

FPO Clear Sky Clock:
Lick Clear Sky Clock:
Mountain View Clear Sky Clock:
Lodi Clear Sky Clock:

AMS fireball reports

[Sutter's Mill Meteorite Consortium website]

2012, May 10 - Another organized search to recover material for research will be conducted on Saturday May 12. We are meeting at 10 a.m. at the museum of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma.

2012, May 10 - Sutters Mill: the movie. Today the NASA Lunar Science Institute released a video showing the find of one of the Sutters Mill meteorites during a volunteer search to recover asteroid material for research.

2012, May 3 - Today NASA and SETI Institute scientists were given the opportunity to survey the meteorite strewn field from a zeppelin, operated by Airship Ventures at NASA Ames Research Center. Peter Jenniskens, Derek Sears, Michael Koop and local citizen and American River Conservancy director Alan Ehrgott searched from 1:15 to 6:15 pm, under ideal lighting conditions. Because of cloudy skies, there were no shadows.

2012, April 30 - A consortium of scientists called the "Sutter's Mill Meteorite Consortium" will analyse the meteorites recovered for research to date.

2012, April 29 - Success! Some 40 volunteers and scientists from NASA Ames and the SETI Institute searched all day Saturday, but initially came up empty... They searched in the Marshall Gold Discovery Historic Park, in BLM lands and along Salmon Fall Road. On Sunday, however, a select group of ten volunteers searched (photo above), on behalf of NASA, on a private property owned by the De Haas family and were successful. Monika "Moni" Waiblinger, who took the group photo above, found a 17g meteorite that can now be used for scientific research. The meteorite is fully crusted, which helped protect its inside from the outside environment. We thank the De Haas family for making this search possible. The photo right shows, from left to right, meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens with meteorite SM12, finder Moni Waiblinger, the matriarch of the De Haas family with grand son, and volunteer Lee Wadley.

Meteorite Sutter's Mill #12. Photo: P. Jenniskens/SETI Institute - NASA ARC

2012, April 28 - On Saturday April 28, we plan to meet at 9:00 a.m. at the museum of the Marshall Gold Discovery Historic Park in Coloma, California, for a concerted search of the "Sutter's Mill" meteorite for scientific purposes in the Marshall Gold Discvoery State Park. Volunteers who are not current State Park volunteers will be required to register for day use in the park at $8 per car and sign in at the museum.

From 9 to 10 am, we will coordinate the search effort by showing you what we are looking for and by assigning groups of volunteers to experts from NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute and then assign areas to search to each team.

From 10 am to 5 pm, we will be conducting the search within the park. Bring lunch and lots of water. It is expected to be about 78F, sunny with partially cloudy skies. The park has toilet facilities.

Please bring strong footware (hiking boots) to walk on slippery and rocky terrain. Please bring sunscreen and a hat, as well as clothes that cover arms and legs. This is to both protect against sunburn and poison oak / poison ivy. Also, bring a water bottle that you can carry along to keep hydrated during the search, as well as lunch or snacks. If you have, please bring handheld gps devices. Please keep in mind that the search is expected to be strenuous and take all day.

Sutter's Mill meteorite SM2. For high-res photo click on picture. Photo: NASA ARC-SETI Institute/P. Jenniskens

2012, April 25 - Today, an urgent call was made to recover photographs and video of the fireball, before that data is overwritten. "Please check your video security camera footage around 7:51 a.m. on Sunday Morning April 22", says Dr. Jenniskens.

A "Sutter's Mill" consortium has been formed to study the recovered meteorites. Members include researchers at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, at NASA Goddard and NASA Johnson, and at the Planetary Science Institute and the University of Berkeley. International participants are from Italy. The meteorite interest group at NASA Ames has daily meetings to organize the research.

Sutter's Mill meteorite. Photo: P. Jenniskens/SETI Institute-NASA ARC

2012, April 24 - First meteorites found! Around 11 a.m. this morning, Arizona meteorite hunter Robert Ward found the first two 2-cm sized meteorites of the "Sutter's Mill" meteorite along the entrance path of Henningsen-Lotus Park, not far from Sutter's Mill.

Later that same day, California meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens makes the second find: a crushed 4g fragment in the parking lot of the Henningsen-Lotus Park, just meters from where the car was parked. Jenniskens had driven up with CAMS project volunteer Mike Koop of Lockheed Martin to investigate the possibility of a concerted search for meteorites in the Marshall Gold Discovery Historic Park in Coloma to collect material for scientific research. They met with park superintendent Jeremy Reynolds and were given a brief tour of potential search areas by park volunteer Ed Allen.

"I believe that James Marshall would have felt much as I did when he found the first gold at Sutter's Mill back in the day", says Jenniskens.

Images show the 4g meteorite in-situ in the Henningsen-Lotus parking lot, and a happy Dr. Jenniskens with the find, with Mike's car in the background at the very spot he had chosen to park it.

2012, April 23 - Astronomer Marc Fries of the Planetary Science Institute reports that the fragments crossed three Doppler weather radar beams. Marc concludes that large fragments are observed falling down at 14.1 km altitude at 14:52:06 UTC (seen in the KDAX 1.5 degree sweep), followed by smaller 100g fragments falling at 17,000 ft approximately 220s after the fireball (seen in the KRGX 1.5 degree radar sweep). The KDAX 3.5 degree sweep detects fragments in the 10g range 420 s after the fireball, falling at about 10,000 ft. The general area is near the townships of Coloma and Lotus, which contains the famous "Sutter's Mill", where John A. Sutter found the first gold in January 1848 that set off the gold rush.

2012, April 22 - At about 7:51 a.m. this morning, a loud sonic boom was heard over much of California's Sierra Nevada mountains around Lake Tahoe. A daytime fireball was seen in all of California and Nevada, even in southern Oregon and near Salt Lake City in Utah. The fireball was described as green, lasting 5 seconds or so. Lisa Warren near Reno obtained a series of three nice photographs over two seconds towards the very end of the fireball after its brightest point, when it already had fallen appart. The final image shows a slew of fragments falling towards earth. the 14:52:10 UTC sweep of KDAX, and the 14:50 UTC sweeps of KRGX and KDAX.