Bright Orionid

[Alfian]

6.10 am this morning, spectacular fireball type meteor ran from the southern sky near Orion disappearing somewhere near the Beehive (I think). Very bright and quite slow, a real wow - best one I've seen in years. 

[JeremyS]

Hello Ian,

must have been a wonderful sight. Are you able to provide an estimate of the brightness?

there is a report of an observation from Kidderminster at 6.10 am this morning at the Armagh Observatory fireball page: http://arpc65.arm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fireballs/browse.pl

It sounds like some of the amateur meteor detection cameras picked it up too.

Go well!

Jeremy

[Dave In Vermont]

There's another site that accepts reports of fireballs in both the USA and the UK - and anywhere else. It's the American Meteor Society, founded in 1911. Very much worth a look:

http://www.amsmeteors.org/

Duck!

Dave

[stewartw]

Hi All,

Yes, was detected by at least two cameras in the NEMETODE network (from Ravensmoor, Cheshire (by myself - composite still image attached) and Allan Carter (from Basingstoke) at 05:11:57 GMT on 12th October 2015. Is a little early for the Orionids and the derived orbit is very different from that of the Orionid progenitor (Halley's comet). Looks like it was a sporadic with an absolute magnitude of -1.2

It was rather slow which can make it appear brighter (visually) than it actually was.

Additional ground track and orbital information is in the lower left of triangulated plots. With a Tisserand Parameter of 3.8, the meteoroid was likely asteroidal in origin.

Best regards

William

www.nemetode.org

[JeremyS]

Excellent, William. Many thanks for posting your results.

Jeremy

[jambouk]

Alfian, I was doing a star trail of Orion at the time (06:13 BST) from North Wales and on looking through my images I thought I'd caught your fireball, but it is just an Iridium Flare by the looks of things as it spans two subs, though its peak is very bright (image below).

Great to see that William and the NEMETODE team have been able to match your observation with a video capture (or two).

James

[Alfian]

Hello Ian,

must have been a wonderful sight. Are you able to provide an estimate of the brightness?

there is a report of an observation from Kidderminster at 6.10 am this morning at the Armagh Observatory fireball page: http://arpc65.arm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fireballs/browse.pl

It sounds like some of the amateur meteor detection cameras picked it up too.

Go well!

Jeremy

Thanks for interest and response everyone.  Just to fill in  a little, I was out with the dogs on their  early constitutional walking pretty much south with Orion just to my right and Venus shining very brightly to my left. Attention was very much to drawn to Venus, Jupiter and Mars when the flash of the object drew my eye so I can't say it was brighter than Venus but just that it was certainly bright enough to quickly draw my eye.  It moved  in a steady elevation right to left, not falling vertically as per Jambouk's excellent photo, and it certainly did move slower than the average meteor, it felt like it was there for a couple of seconds before it faded but it could have been less. 

I enjoy my early walks with the dogs this time of year going into winter. If its clear the seeing is often better than late evenings, the atmosphere seems more settled. I have no free hands to use binos but naked eye observation is quite rewarding and just now again you get to see something a bit special!  

[JeremyS]

Thanks for the report, Ian. Always good to hear how these observations come about.

Early risers are rewarded by a great sight of the planets in the East.

Go well!

Jeremy

[Charic]

6.10 am this morning, spectacular fireball type meteor ran from the southern sky near Orion disappearing somewhere near the Beehive (I think). Very bright and quite slow, a real wow - best one I've seen in years. 

This reminds me of the Leonid shower I witnessed in 1998, and possibly the precursor to wanting a telescope,  binoculars were used back then ?

At work  during the show, I/we  watched  in amazement as they streaked across the sky, and for so long too, not just quick flashes, but proper fireballs  across the sky , something I wont forget in a hurry. 

War of The worlds sprang to mind that night!

[Alfian]

This reminds me of the Leonid shower I witnessed in 1998, and possibly the precursor to wanting a telescope,  binoculars were used back then ?

At work  during the show, I/we  watched  in amazement as they streaked across the sky, and for so long too, not just quick flashes, but proper fireballs  across the sky , something I wont forget in a hurry. 

War of The worlds sprang to mind that night!

Cue dramatic Richard Burton voice ...."no one would have believed that in the last years of the ......... a huge mass of luminous gas .............Bright green drawing a green mist behind it. A beautiful but somehow disturbing sight. Ogilvy the astronomer assured me we were in no danger." Poor Ogilvy. 

In this instance the "mass of luminous gas" was heading the other way - (very loosely speaking and with some license ) in the direction of Mars so at least for this one Ogilvy got it right.

[bejay1957]

This reminds me of the Leonid shower I witnessed in 1998, and possibly the precursor to wanting a telescope,  binoculars were used back then ?

At work  during the show, I/we  watched  in amazement as they streaked across the sky, and for so long too, not just quick flashes, but proper fireballs  across the sky , something I wont forget in a hurry. 

War of The worlds sprang to mind that night!

For me it was the Perseids in 1994; I was down in the Avebury area (along with several hundreds of new-agers), I lost count of the bright fireballs streaking across the sky - I too immediately thought WOTW :-)