Bright Meteor captured by two UKMON stations on 11 July 2013

By Richard Kacerek

---

---

NLO All Sky Camera shows a bright meteor that streaked across the UK night sky at 00:58 (UT) on 11 July 2013.  Luckily for us this meteor was also captured by two of UKMON stations in the south of England.

David Jones from the S.P.A.M. team at the Norman Lockyer Observatory analysed the data from the NLO and the Fleet cameras to see what we could learn about this meteor.

The analysis revealed that this sporadic meteor with a V0 of over 69km per second. It’s initial altitude was about 128km and its terminal altitude was about 82km, and as it burned up in the atmosphere it reached an apparent magnitude of -3.6 . Its heliocentric velocity is very close to the escape velocity at 1AU.

Clanfield camera

NLO camera

Was this a fireball?  The International Astronomical Union defines a fireball as “a meteor brighter than any of the planets” (magnitude −4 or greater) whereas the International Meteor Organization has a slightly different definition.  The IMO defines a fireball as a meteor that would have a magnitude of −3 or brighter if seen at zenith.

Ground trail of the meteor

Our sincerest thanks to David Jones and the NLO for sharing their analysis and images.