First Lyrid Fireball for UKMON

By Richard Kacerek

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UKMON network has been trying to record Lyrid meteor shower but weather was not favourable this year, again. Last time it was clear weather for Lyrid meteor shower was in 2015. Although Lyrid meteor shower of 2017 was officially a bust, miracle happened. We recorded a fireball between Scotch Street and Wilcot stations.

First alerted by Steve from his Scotch Street station in Northern Ireland:

Wilcot had a match!

After a bit of searching Richard Fleet from Wilcot station had found a beautiful match.

East Barnet also has a match

Jim also found a match on his East Barnet camera. Fireball just barely making it though the rain clouds.

We classify fireballs by brightness, using loose IAU definition of anything larger than -4 magnitude (“a meteor brighter than any of the planets”). Unified measurement puts this meteor at -4.6 which makes this category and becomes a fireball.

First interesting fact is the speed of 60 m/s which is a bit faster than general speed of Lyrid meteors. The unified measurement actually classifies this meteor as Lambda Lyrid meteor, with an interesting orbit:

Update

Dave’s capture from Chard Observatory:

Richard Bassom sent us his picture:

Radio

Lockyer Technology Center (LTC) using G.R.A.V.E.S. (France) radar found and kindly sent us a matching radio response images for this particular fireball meteor.