Fireball!

Here's the latest contribution to the warrenastro YouTube channel, from local amateur rocketry icon Frank "Rocketman" Uroda.

He writes:

After running my SkyCam for nearly a year, I switched to a new camera. I had finished making adjustments on it for the night and just let it run. Apparently at 5:15 AM a huge fireball (meteor) streaked across the northern sky. My new SkyCam caught the meteor and the smoke trail it left!

Attached is a 3 second time lapse video that actually covers a 30 minute time frame. Each frame is a 1 minute exposure and the video is running at 10 frames per second. The smoke trail lingered in the sky for over 20 minutes!

There is nothing in the images to give you a sense of scale. I usually get some trees on the edges for just that purpose. However, I have not yet finished with the adjustment and the camera was just pointed at the sky more or less at random. The field of view in the frame is about 90 degrees from left to right. This means that the meteor covered about 45 degrees....or a distance about 90 full moons across!

I plan to get a better lens for this new cam soon. That will allow for better clarity and a wider field of view.