A quadrantid fireball imaged in 2011

Abstract

The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on Jan. 3-4, with its main activity confined to a 12 to 14 h window. Despite it has one of the highest ZHR of all annual showers (above 100 meteors/hour), it is very difficult to observe because of frequent bad weather in early January in the northern hemisphere. One asteroid, the near-Earth object 2003 EH1, is the accepted parent body of the Quadrantid meteoroid stream [1]. Several studies have revealed changes in the orbital elements of this stream within a period of a few thousand years [2-6]. So, the determination of precise orbital and radiant information can be very useful to improve our knowledge about the Quadrantids. For this reason, in the framework of the SPanish Meteor Network (SPMN) we focus our attention on the activity of this stream when weather conditions are favourable. Thus, as a result of our continuous monitoring of meteor activity, tens of double-station Quadrantid meteors were recorded from our observing stations in January 2011. Among these, several fireballs are included. For events brighter than mag. -5 our spectral cameras, which perform a continuous spectroscopic campaign, imaged the emission spectrum produced during the ablation of meteoroids in the atmosphere. We present here the preliminary analysis of one of these bolides.