SHOOTING STARS
The UK-China Leonid Meteor Shower
Observation Project

A fireball descends towards the south-western horizon, behind one of the receiving dishes at the Mi Yun Observatory. The Observatory is on the Northern shore of a huge reservoir in the mountains, some 90 km north of Beijing. The expose was automatic, but less than 1/60 sec, while the aperture was set around f.4. The photograph was taken with the zoom lens set at about 50mm. The picture has been scanned at 200dpi and reduced to 57% of the original size. The fireball was not noticed when the picture was taken.

This image is a close-up from the previous one, which zooms in on the fireball. The photograph was taken at approximately 17:35 local time (09:35 UT). At this moment the radiant in Leo was about six hours from appearing above the horizon. The tail of the fireball, however, points straight towards Leo. The picure was scanned at 1200dpi.