Unusual meteor Derbyshire 14 Feb

[Plane38]

Hi everyone,

I've been looking at this forum for ages on and off but it took me seeing something unusual last night (14 Feb) to finally join! I was in my back garden and had been looking through my telescope at NGC2264 in Monoceros last night when I looked up from my telescope and saw a meteor unlike anything I've ever seen before. The time was 20h 06m or 20h 07m and I first saw this object low in the southeast, a few degrees to the west of Alphard. It was quite diffuse and it had what I estimate to be around 2 degrees of 'tail'. It moved northwards, very slowly, one of the slowest meteors I have ever seen, and I was able to easily follow it with my eyes. It remained about 2nd magnitude for some time, still with the 'tail' and rather diffuse, then it began to brighten to probably first magnitude as it passed a few degrees to the west of Regulus, before it rapidly faded and disappeared around the Sickle of Leo. The whole time I saw it I estimated as between 10 and 15 seconds. My thoughts were drawn to the great meteor procession of 1913 but unfortunately nothing else followed!

I suppose my point is, there were probably a few people out observing last night and I thought there was just the chance someone else might have seen it - is there anyone on here who did?

[allcart]

Sounds like the same one I captured last night on one of my meteor cams. My East facing cam tracked it from Dunkirk in France, across the channel and up the east coast past Great Yarmouth for almost 8secs. It progressed into view of my North facing cam where it slowly faded out. It was a sporadic meteor about mag 1.3. Your description is pretty near bang on.

[Dave In Vermont]

To help you rule out, or in, an artificial satellite, Previsat is an excellent freeware program:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/previsat/

Just remember to update it.

Dave

[Plane38]

Thanks guys, I must say it is nice to have someone else confirm an observation! I've checked heavens above and there doesn't appear to have been any satellite that bright visible from my home at that time so it must have been a sporadic meteor. Still struggling to believe just how slowly it moved though.

[cdacos]

Hi Plane38

Just registered when I saw your post. I believe I saw the same one too, from SW London. It appeared to move northwards across Leo, parallel to the horizon, and seemed "slow", with a noticeable flare before petering out. I was so impressed I made a note of the time: 20:05

Cheers
Carlos

[andrew s]

Nice observation and glad you got video confirmation. It did not show on my meteor cam but I am not sure it would been visible for me and I am in the process of commissioning it so it may not have worked anyway!

At that time of night meteors have to catch up with the earth in its orbit so they can be quite slow but it may also have been just grazing the atmosphere.

 

Regards Andrew 

 

PS Just checked The Sky to identify the stars in Allan's capture. Looks like I might have just missed it as my camera elevation is a tad too high to limit the impact of planes into Manchester airport. I was also getting quite a bit of cloud at around that time.