Perseid Fireball over the Kolonica Saddle
What a great Perseids peak this year! For the maximum of this favourite annual meteor shower I decided to travel
again in the
Dark sky park of Poloniny, Slovakia, where not only low light pollution level but also weather forecast promised unforgottable experience. And here is one of the best from the whole show: extremely bright fireball before local midnight of 12th August, 2018, exactly in 21:55:07,67 UTC, which surprised all of dozens of observers in and around the
Kolonica Observatory. The fireball was so bright that even the nightscape around got brighter like under fainter moonlit and its light trail was visible for more than one hour after the fireball appeared in the sky! The mosaic shows the most amazing moments of the phenomenon – the firebal itself and development of the trail each next 1 minute. In fact, after an hour the remnants of the trail were larger than 80 degrees. Used Canon 6D, Samyang 12 mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 30s exposures.
I would like to thank to dr. Pavel Spurný of Astronomical Institute of the Czech Republic for giving me precise information about time of the fireball phenomenon as I could only estimate from 30s exposure and observation of witnesses around the Kolonica observatory.
