Camelopardalid?? Or something else.

[ClaireBaire]

Hello,

I am out at a fairly dark sky site at the moment 1 hour North of Adelaide.

I just saw a large meteor cut across the sky at 8.28pm. A rough guess of size is 10 full moon diameters. It seemed to come from the zenith then it shot Northwards. It lasted only a second. Could this have been one of the camelopardalids?

I know the camelopardalids are probably not visible in Australia and have checked Stellarium which shows that the constellation does not rise at all this far south. But I just wonder...

When the lyrids were active in April I saw one extremely large one - also which did not come from the direction of its radiant. This happened about 2.30 am and likewise flashed by in only a second.

Be nice to know if anyone else saw this meteor tonight.

Cheers,
Claire.

[Blue Skies]

Definitely something else. There is always a significant proportion of random meteors every night, ones that come from any old direction and aren't linked to showers.

Another reason the meteor you saw was a sporadic (not random, as I had before when I couldn't think what it was) is that it would have been heading in the opposite direction!

A quick Meteor Showers 101 for you:

Meteor showers have a radiant, an area of sky that all the meteors connected with that shower would appear to come from if you trace their path back from where you saw them. The radiant is never a tight point, but rather a patch of sky, so you are extremely unlikely to pin the radiant down to an exact spot.

The closer the meteor is to the radiant, the shorter the train, or streak of light it creates, will be. That's why its usually better to look about 90 degrees away from where the radiant is, as the meteors will be a decent length to see. If you wanted to be different you could even look at the opposite side of the sky, where they should be quite long, and they may even seem to be converging on the anti-radiant, the opposite point of the sky to the radiant (I've seen people do it, and even had a go myself a couple of times for the eta Aquarids).

As a general rule, if the radiant isn't above the horizon, you don't see any meteors from that shower. The exception is if the radiant is *just* below the horizon - in this situation you may get what are called earthgrazers. Because of their geometry, they are literally skimming through the atmosphere you can see rather than plunging into it, they can be quite spectacular. I was lucky enough to see a Leonids earthgrazer in the late 90's, a huge, long streak of light that started near the horizon and ended over our shoulders, well over 110 degrees of sky. That is exceptional! But they don't happen very often.

Meteor showers are generally seen during the early hours of the morning, as this is when the Earth is turning into them. There are a few evening showers, such as the Taurids in November and some Virgids in late April-early May, but generally most showers are seen after midnight. The speed of the meteors can vary depending on whether the stream is streaming right into the Earth (fast!), or travelling in the same direction as the Earth (slower).

[As a bit of trivia, I was told about 15% of meteors you see originate from other solar systems, as their speed is faster than the escape velocity for our solar system. The things you can find out by watching a streak of light!]

So for your meteor - radiant not above the horizon, so no, and if it was the meteor should have been moving north to south i.e. from the north horizon up towards the zenith, not the other way as you saw.

Sporadic meteors can be spectacular and fun - just enjoy them!

If you want to get more into meteor showers I would recommend these two sites:
International Meteor Organisation (http://www.imo.net/)
Meteor Showers Online
(http://meteorshowersonline.com/index.html)
And if you want to report any meteors you think are *really* exceptional (as in turning night into day and creating a sonic boom) Phil Bland and his Fireballs in the Sky (http://www.fireballsinthesky.com.au/) team would probably like to hear from you via their reporting app - just search for Fireballs in the Sky.

Meteor shower astronomy is still a fairly young discipline and there is lots of work to do if you are really interested in them and those two sites will give you a good start.

[Astroman]

oh damn, I stopped shooting about 30mins before this. Would have been nice to get it on the camera.

[MrB]

Sporadic? ;)
Nice write-up by the way :thumbsup:

[Blue Skies]

That's it! Sporadic! Thanks, Simon.

[ClaireBaire]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, BlueSkies :). I'm only sorry I didn't respond earlier but life got hectic after my trip to the country last weekend. I ended up seeing three meteors. The second one was a fireball, short and stubby with a bright, round head. The third was short and faint.

:thanx: Claire.