Slow Motion Sequences of Meteors

On January 5/6, 1995, we recorded the -4 mag Delta Cancrid fireball shown above near Hannover (Germany) with our video system MOVIE. During the analysis all video frames of the meteor were digitized, processed and finally converted into an MPEG animation.

Of course, this sequence is not as thrilling as the Peekskill fireball from October 9, 1992, but that event was recorded by spectators of a football match in the United States by pure chance. In fact it was the first video record of a meteorite fall, where the corresponding object was found later: the meteorite crashed into the trunk of a car.

Anyway, there have been other interesting events recorded by video systems: Klaas Jobse and Marc de Lignie found three strange 'worm meteors' that look quite different than all the other thousands of shooting stars they have been catching on video tapes so far. The animation shows the brightest event from October 18, 1987, 3:31:40 UT. The video system they used contained a second generation image intensifier as the main component.