Southern Taurid fireball over SE UK last night - 081122 21:07 UT

[Leo S]

Nice suspected Taurid fireball. I only managed to see the end. Thankfully the camera caught it all. Unfortunately only caught the start of a larger event at around 23:37!

Equipment/settings: Sony a7SII + Sigma Art 20/1.4 @ f1.4 - 1/30s, ISO 12800, 30 FPS - Recording internally to card - Maximum quality (vivid setting set on camera).

There appears to have been an uptick in Taurid fireballs the other night according to NASA, and it seems I might have caught the tail end of it:

On Nov 08, 2022, the network reported 65 fireballs.
(36 northern Taurids, 28 sporadics, 1 omicron Eridanid)

 

 

 

[glafnazur]

Nice one 👍

[Space Hopper]

Great capture Leo,

By chance, i saw it too in the Chinley area with a dark sky. The timings are about the same if i remember.

I also saw a red /orange meteor going in the opposite direction (same area of sky) a few minutes before. Possibly a sporadic ?

 

[Leo S]

1 hour ago, Space Hopper said:

Great capture Leo,

By chance, i saw it too in the Chinley area with a dark sky. The timings are about the same if i remember.

I also saw a red /orange meteor going in the opposite direction (same area of sky) a few minutes before. Possibly a sporadic ?

 

Nice to hear someone else on SGL also caught it. It was already quite impressive in my Bortle 6 sky here, so must have been even more so from a dark sky.

If the other one you caught was in the same part of the sky/going the opposite direction then it's not going to be a Taurid as you suggested. You could well be right about it being a sporadic. Red/orange is often a sign of a relatively slow meteoroid (or it could also be a very fast meteoroid that has penetrated quite deeply into the atmosphere - quite rate to see IME - I've only seen negative magnitude earth grazers do this), and the only significant slow meteor showers that are active right now are the Taurids. It could be one of the many very minor showers that are active, but probably more likely a sporadic. I do catch bright slowish red/orange sporadics on a fairly regular basis, but have not for a couple of weeks. Mind you, I only bother with brighter events, so the cameras have probably caught at least a few I'm unaware of in that time.

Unfortunately I only have about 3 minutes of footage before the fireball in the clip I have saved, and I'm fairly sure there was nothing early on in the clip, but I'll check anyway - I still need to check the footage after the fireball in case there is something there.

[Leo S]

Little update:

126 people have now reported the event: https://fireballs.imo.net/members/imo_view/event/2022/8394

It has also had some analysis, and been added to the UKMON "Fireballs in 2022" page: https://archive.ukmeteornetwork.co.uk/reports/2022/orbits/202211/20221108/20221108_210750.418_UK/index.html

 

Orbital Analysis for matched events on 20221108_210750.418_UK
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Summary for Event
-----------------
Updated: 2022-11-10 21:24:47

shower ID 628 STS (s Taurids)
Lg 58.15° Bg -5.19° Vg 27.92km/s
mass 7.33182g, abs. mag -6.1
best visual mag -4.9
Path Details
------------
start 0.65° 50.85° 106.99km
end   -0.37° 51.10° 49.18km

Orbit Details
-------------
Semimajor axis 2.04A.U., eccentricity 0.82, inclination 5.94°, Period 2.92Y, LA Sun 226.13°, last Perihelion 2020-01-19