# Enhancing Meteor Observations with Photodiode Detectors  
[PERSON]  
1 Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science, Silesian University of Technology,  
Akademicka 16, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (J.F.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (J.C.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (K.B.)  
Footnote 1: [[https://doi.org/10.3390/app15052828](https://doi.org/10.3390/app15052828)]([https://doi.org/10.3390/app15052828](https://doi.org/10.3390/app15052828))  
[PERSON]  
1 Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science, Silesian University of Technology,  
Akademicka 16, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (J.F.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (J.C.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (K.B.)  
Footnote 2: [[https://www.kagemicka.org/](https://www.kagemicka.org/)]([https://www.kagemicka.org/](https://www.kagemicka.org/))  
Received: 6 February 2025  
Revised: 28 February 2025  
Accepted: 3 March 2025  
Footnote 3: [[https://www.kagemicka.org/](https://www.kagemicka.org/)]([https://www.kagemicka.org/](https://www.kagemicka.org/))  
Footnote 4: [[https://www.kagemicka.org/](https://www.kagemicka.org/)]([https://www.kagemicka.org/](https://www.kagemicka.org/))  
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In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of satellites placed in Earth's orbit, driven by the development of space technology and the growing demand for satellite communications, Earth observations, and scientific space experiments. Unfortunately, this trend also presents challenges for astronomical observations. Satellites often produce \"flares\" or \"glints\"--reflections of sunlight that can be mistaken for meteors in CCD/CMOS images [13]. This phenomenon causes false detections and poses challenges for scientists analyzing night-sky images. As the number of satellites grows almost exponentially, the problem of false detections becomes increasingly significant, particularly in meteor imaging.  
This paper presents an innovative approach to meteor observations using photodiodes-based detectors. These detectors allow rapid recording of brightness changes at a frequency of 100 Hz, offering deeper insight into the dynamics of meteors. The proposed system can avoid false detections produced by CCD/CMOS systems, which result from overflying satellites or other objects that create streaks mimicking meteors. Moreover, the storage space needed for the photodiode's one-dimensional data is markedly smaller than for camera-based systems. This solution has the potential to become a valuable addition to existing meteor stations, offering new opportunities to better understand the nature of interplanetary meteoroids and their passage through Earth's atmosphere.  
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we review and evaluate previously proposed concepts and implementations of photometers designed for meteor observations. Section 3 presents our device concept in detail, including its electronic circuits and the measured noise characteristics. Section 4 describes the preliminary observation results obtained on 11-12 August 2023. Finally, we discuss these initial findings in Section 5 and draw our conclusions in Section 6.