Fireball report

Reports Report 863a (Event 863-2019)

Observer
Name	Olivier S
Experience Level	4/5
Remarks	I was in Iceland to chase the northern lights for a few nights ( I go there frequently and guide private aurora hunting tours, see www.aurorafiddler.com ) , saw great display earlier in the evening of february 7 driving from Reykjavik to Keflavik https://www.newsflare.com/video/276055/weather-nature/car-passenger-films-spectacular-aurora-display-in-iceland then hang around the coastline for some time but aurora was going faint so I decided to call it a night, went to my rental cottage north of Sandgerdi, and as I was going to go to sleep I thought ya well lets hang out a few more minutes and shoot some faint aurora, I can sleep late in the morning ... so I put the Sony a7s on tripod to shoot north and the 6D on car windshield to shoot continuous images with the aurora. By the way, I was in Iceland also last october during the Draconids outbreak and saw nice aurora with dozens and dozens of Draconids, some pretty bright ones, too. I also went to Iceland for last year's Geminids, saw hundreds of Geminids but aurora was very faint on the peak night.. But I did catch a nice earthgrazer the night before the peak. Will definately return to Iceland for the next Geminids even if bright moon light.

Photo

Location
Address	Sandgerði (IS)
Latitude	64° 3' 39.51'' N (64.060974°)
Longitude	22° 42' 13.53'' W (-22.703759°)
Elevation	3.252992m

Time and Duration
Local Date & Time	2019-02-08 03:15 GMT
UT Date & Time	2019-02-08 03:15 UT
Duration	≈3.5s

Direction
Moving direction	From up right to down left
Descent Angle	209°

Moving
Facing azimuth	340.56°
First azimuth	322.18°
First elevation	20°
Last azimuth	314.13°
Last elevation	9°

Brightness and color
Stellar Magnitude	-10
Color	Light Blue

Concurrent Sound
Observation	No
Remarks	-

Delayed Sound
Observation	No
Remarks	-

Persistent train
Observation	No
Duration	-
Length	-
Remarks	-

Terminal flash
Observation	Yes
Remarks	it appeared first as a normal relatively slow bright meteor and exploded brightly, seemed to move relatively slowly and lasted a few seconds ... compared to my experience with other meteor showers and earthgrazers I've seen in the past , it was very bright but did not do a very long track, as you can see from the photo and video. Photo detail : Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 12mm f/2.8, ISO 5000, laid down on car windshield facing almost north , I was doing continuous 10-seconds exposures to shoot the very faint auroral band low to the NNW when I caught the fireball. EXIF data says it was 03:14:33 ( U.T. is local time in Iceland ) . At the same time my Sony a7s on tripod was shooting realtime video at 25 fps with a Sigma 16mm f/1.4 lens ( slightly zoomed in to limit vignetting, so I was shooting video at around 19mm FF focal length) and very high ISO ( not recorded but may have been 100'000 ISO or even more since the aurora was rather faint ) and f/1.4 . Sadly the fireball happened just at the edge of the frame and went out but it still nicely did illuminate the sky as you can see in the video.

Terminal flash

Observation

Yes

Remarks

it appeared first as a normal relatively slow bright meteor and exploded brightly, seemed to move relatively slowly and lasted a few seconds ... compared to my experience with other meteor showers and earthgrazers I've seen in the past , it was very bright but did not do a very long track, as you can see from the photo and video. Photo detail : Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 12mm f/2.8, ISO 5000, laid down on car windshield facing almost north , I was doing continuous 10-seconds exposures to shoot the very faint auroral band low to the NNW when I caught the fireball. EXIF data says it was 03:14:33 ( U.T. is local time in Iceland ) . At the same time my Sony a7s on tripod was shooting realtime video at 25 fps with a Sigma 16mm f/1.4 lens ( slightly zoomed in to limit vignetting, so I was shooting video at around 19mm FF focal length) and very high ISO ( not recorded but may have been 100'000 ISO or even more since the aurora was rather faint ) and f/1.4 . Sadly the fireball happened just at the edge of the frame and went out but it still nicely did illuminate the sky as you can see in the video.

Fragmentation
Observation	No
Remarks	-