Perseid Meter?

[OzDave]

Hi,

While on holidays I was lying outside casually looking at the night sky to the North and was noticing a few shooting stars coming out from Cassiopeia mostly I think. I forget the exact date, but it was either 12th or 14th August, near the peak of the Perseid shower.

Anyway, at one point I saw something flash across the sky leaving a faint smoke trail at a fairly high altitude, maybe 50-60 degrees, but I can't be sure. The trail was horizontal and stretched across maybe 20-30 degrees of azimuth. At the end of the trail, the object burst into a small fireball with yellow colours and disappeared quickly. The whole thing took place in less than a couple of seconds.

This was completely different to the other Perseids I had seen, but similar in that it was in the same region of sky and roughly from the same source region.

Was this some kind of super-sized Perseid meteor that burned up brightly, or does it sound like something else entirely. I've never seen anything like it...

Dave

[LukeSkywatcher]

Hi Dave. What you saw is called a fireball. Quite a few people here (myself included) saw similar sightings around the date of the meteor shower maximum. It is basically a larger bit of "dust" then the average meteor and burns brighter as it burns up on contact with the earths atmosphere.......sometimes fragmenting into many smaller bits.

[yeti monster]

The only Perseid I saw this time was a fireball, it set the dawg orft growling!

I doubt I'll ever forget last year, watching them from the window of a 747-400 at 38,000 ft, brilliant they were!