A very nice oronid on the night of October 21st

This October has been a truly intense month for fireballs. The latest one, a beautiful Oronid, occurred last night, October 21st, at 00:13 UT.

The event was registered with the SMART Project's detectors operated at the observatories of Calar Alto in Almería, La Hita in Toledo, Sierra Nevada and La Sagra in Granada, Mazagón in Huelva, Huelva, and Seville.

One of the external cameras located at the Calar Alto Observatory in Almería was able to capture some impressive images of this object.

According to the preliminary analysis carried out, as usual, by Professor José María Madiedo, Principal Investigator of the SMART Project, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), the fireball was caused by the entry into the atmosphere of a rock from the well-known and famous comet 1P/Halley at an estimated speed of 243,000 km/h.

As seen in the image on the left, the luminous part of the event began at an altitude of 126 km above the southwest part of the province of Granada in southern Spain. The object then moved westward, reaching the province of Málaga, where it finished at an altitude of 83 km.

Below is the nice video captured by one of the external cameras operated from the Calar Alto Observatory in Almería.

Calar Alto (CAHA) fireball detection station, together with the one at the Observatory of Sierra Nevada (IAA-CSIC) and others placed at different locations in Spain, are part of the S.M.A.R.T. project led by Professor José María Madiedo (IAA) to track that kind of objects. Specifically, Calar Alto (CAHA) station and the one at Sierra Nevada (IAA-CSIC) constitute a collaboration agreement between the IAA researcher José María Madiedo and both institutions.