(meteorobs) A good multistation orbit of a bright XHE bolid in Finland

Esko Lyytinen esko.lyytinen at jippii.fi
Wed Mar 12 13:39:45 EDT 2014


We had on Monday 2014, March 10 at 17:44:16 UT a bolide that had an end 
flash of the magnitude close to that of the Moon in the same PIeksämäki 
image (Moon mag. -10.8 ), from a distance of 122 km. So the abs. mag of 
the flash was about -11 .

This happened near the SE border of Finland.

This was captured into the fireball camera of Timo Kantola in Pieksämäki.
http://www.taivaanvahti.fi/observations/show/22675

And this was also accidentally captured into a DSLR camera by Voitto 
Pitkänen at a distance of about 500 km.:
http://www.taivaanvahti.fi/observations/show/22661
We also received lot of visual reports, even though the nearby areas in 
SE Finland were cloud covered.
http://www.taivaanvahti.fi/observations/browse/map/454588/observation_start_time

See also: http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.fi/
and
http://www.avaruus.fi/uutiset/tahtiharrastus-ja-taivaanilmiot/kirkas-tulipallo-hajosi-itarajan-ylla.html

These two camera observations allowed a very good multistation 
trajectory and solar system orbit. The entry trajectory was derived with 
the fb_entry Excel sheet program and the solar system orbit by means of 
(a slightly modified) M. Langbroek Excel sheet.

It appears that this was most probably an XHE shower meteor:
http://www.ta3.sk/IAUC22DB/MDC2007/Roje/pojedynczy_obiekt.php?kodstrumienia=00346&colecimy=1&kodmin=00001&kodmax=00446&sortowanie=0

The beginning height of the luminous flight was 110 km and the flash at 
65.7 km with something visible in the DSLR image down to about 62.8 km. 
The entry slope was 27 degrees.
The entry velocity was derived as 35.26 km/s with an estimated 
uncertainyt of  +-0.1 km/s.
The velocity had decreased till the flash by only about 1 km/s ( to 
about 34 km/s ).
The beginning height of the luminous flight was 110 km and the flash at 
65.7 km with something visible in the DSLR image down to about 62.8 km. 
The entry slope was 27 degrees.


And I give here the solar system orbital elements.
The geocentric radiant is 252.14+-0.1 , +51.74+-0.2  and Vgeo 33.37 km/s .
a=3.01 +-0.06 AU
q=0.977 AU
e=0.675
Node=349.876
Peri=196.46
i=56.16
The collision with the Earth was 12.6 days prior to the time of perihelion.

The aphelion of this orbit is at the distance of 5.03 AU from the Sun. 
IF this is characteristic to this shower,  then (considering also the 
peri value of 196.46) the orbits pass quite close to the Jupiter orbit. 
And IF there are mainly random encouters with Jupiter, then the shower 
would be quite short lived. But maybe there are practically only 
resonant meteors left in the shower (?) This orbit is suggestive of 
either the 9/4 or 7/3 mean motion resonance with Jupiter.

We had in the cameras of Ilkka Yrjölä and myself some probable minor 
activity from this radiant during a few nights around this, but no other 
multistation meteors in these.

Esko



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