Can meteor colours be this intense?

[Stonius]

Maybe it's naive of me - I've seen a few meteors in my time - mostly incidentally as a result of observing other stuff. I've heard that their colours are supposed to be tell-tale signs of their compositions, but honestly, I've only ever really seen them as white-ish.

Reports of colour I'd always put down to fanciful/inflated reports of faint tinges of pastel hues that didn't excite me much.

Then a couple of nights ago I saw a bright (~mag -3) meteor that was a deep, deep saturated neon green like you would see at a fireworks display. (Moving from Zenith towards the southeast horizon at around 7:15-ish).

I couldn't believe the intensity of the colour. Is that normal?

Maybe I should take this meteor watching thing a little more seriously?

Markus

[Kunama]

That is exactly the colour I saw a few weeks ago over Canberra.
The meteor itself was a brilliant iridescent green and trailed smaller orange bits that then left a smoke trail that lasted a few seconds.

https://amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/report/141076

[GrahamL]

I wonder if its where in the atmosphere they burn up figures into the colour

I once saw one at astrofest that was bright orange , i could hear it making a fizzing sound right before it went pop at the end.

[astroron]

This may give you some idea.
https://accuweather.brightspotcdn.com/7d/a9/58aa49e549639252bbd99f3114b8/meteor-shower-colors.jpg
It all depends how much atmosphere it is traveling through, the lower down on the horizon the deeper the hue the colour will be.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Kunama]

Nickel/Iron meteors glow green (from the Nickel burning up)

[LewisM]

I've seen a few blue-green, as well as some orange/red ones. Plenty of white lol. Only a couple of whistlers/boomers, and 2 smokers.

[OzEclipse]

A bigger meteor penetrates further into the atmosphere and slows down becoming cooler as it hits the denser air.

So in addition to the ionisation of the atmospheric gas surrounding it, there must be a colour temperature effect of the glow of the meteor.

From hottest to coolest
white
blue
green
yellow
orange
red

I've always assumed that this is why the biggest ones are the most colourful and why small pieces ejected from the bigger piece are often orange and red. They are smaller and therefore cool quickly.

Joe

[Stonius]

That makes sense too. Black body spectrum peaks related to temperature, chemical oxidation (burning), and I guess atmospheric absorption would all have some effect, but presumably the greatest effect in this case would have been the composition? It was green green green, all the way.