Dashcams capture great views of Tuesday's bright fireball
Meteorologist/Science Writer
Thursday, October 6, 2016, 2:42 PM - Less than two weeks after one flashed over southern Quebec, on Tuesday, hundreds of people across the Great Lakes and Northeast spied another bright meteor fireball in the sky. Scroll down for two amazing dashcam videos of the event!
At 10:36 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, October 4, witnesses from Toronto to New York City, and many points in between, spotted a bright flash in the sky, caused by a small piece of debris entering Earth's atmosphere from space.
As of Thursday afternoon, the American Meteor Society - which receives and logs fireball reports on their website - has over 700 reports for this event so far.
The updated American Meteor Society "heat map" for this event, showing the concentration of reports from witnesses, as of Thursday, Oct 6. Credit: AMS
It is very rare to actually capture images or video of these events, since the meteoroid producing the bright flash is typically travelling at speeds of several kilometres a second before the meteor winks out.
However, this particular fireball was caught on camera by the University of Toronto Scarborough observatory webcam! Watch in the embedded video below, paying close attention at around 3 seconds into the time-lapse.
A timelapse showing the view from #UTSC during the last 40 minutes. pic.twitter.com/9gDPnlDwsD
— UTSC Observatory (@UTSCObservatory) October 5, 2016
The still frame the UTSC observatory team extracted shows off the meteor flash beautifully, even capturing a few bright flares before it went dark.
Here's a still image of the #meteor that appeared over #Toronto this evening. Full video here https://t.co/vask7eB0eF pic.twitter.com/ChmSHv1qtB
— UTSC Observatory (@UTSCObservatory) October 5, 2016
According to another post on the observatory Twitter account, this is the very first fireball they've captured on their webcam!
Just as happened with the Montreal meteor from September 22, more images and video of this meteor have surfaced as the day has progressed.
This dashcam video, captured by Kris Brown, shows the view of this fireball from Vestal, New York, a little over 100 km west of the meteoroid's estimated path.
A second dashcam video has surfaced over the past day, submitted to the AMS by peace officer Pat Fairhurst.
Stay tuned for any further updates, as they filter in.
Teaser image courtesy: UTSC Observatory
Source: AMS
