Bright meteor over the AAT

This week I’m back at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT, Siding Spring Observatory) as support astronomer. As the same time I’m helping visitors astronomer to get the best data using the 2dF instrument, I’m taking time-lapse sequences of the night sky using 2 CANON EOS 5D Mark III cameras. This afternoon, when checking the “preliminary” sequences of the previous night, I discovered a bright meteor in one of the frames. I was excited because at the beginning I thought it was a Leonid, but I checked and it seems to be a sporadic meteor or, perhaps, a meteor from the South Taurids shower.

The circumpolar Southern Sky, with the Magellanic Clouds, the Southern Cross and the Pointers (Alpha and Beta Centauri) over the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT), at Siding Spring Observatory (NSW, Australia). A bright meteor crosses the sky. Although it could have been a meteor of the Leonids meteor shower, the radiant (point in the sky from where the meteors of a meteor shower come from) was not in the sky. However it could be a meteor from the South Taurids shower. Photo taken at 2am AEST (UT+11) of the 17 Nov 2015 with a CANON EOS5D using a 16 mm lens at f2.8, 3200 ISO, 30 seconds exposure. Click here to get a higher resolution image. Credit: Ángel R. López-Sánchez (AAO/MQ).

A reddish-greenish sky glow is also seen in the image. This glow has been also observed from the observatories in Chile as is consequence of chemical reactions involving oxygen (green colours, usually forming ozone) and nitrogen (red colours) molecules in our atmosphere. These chemical reactions are induced by ultraviolet emission from the Sun, which is much more intense when the solar cycle is in maximum, as it has been in the last few years.