Home security camera captures ‘bolide’ meteor streak across Albuquerque night sky

Home security video captures meteor

A security camera in New Mexico captured video of a bolide meteor streaking across the sky.

A New Mexico resident’s home security camera captured footage of a “bolide” meteor streaking across the night sky on July 28.

Collin Delker, who lives in Albuquerque, said his camera recorded the video on the northeast side of the city at 8:55 p.m. Tuesday.

Local news media reported two meteor showers were expected in the area between Tuesday evening and Wednesday called the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids.

Meteors or asteroids that are categorized as “bolide” are due to the light that’s emitted once the space debris explodes in the atmosphere, according to American Meteor Society (AMS).

“The Alpha Capricornids are active from July 3 through August 15 with a ‘plateau-like’ maximum centered on July 30,” according to AMS. “This shower is not very strong and rarely produces in excess of five shower members per hour. What is notable about this shower is the number of bright fireballs produced during its activity period. This shower is seen equally well on either side of the equator.”

As for the Southern Delta Aquariids, AMS states that these showers will be active between July 12th to Aug. 23rd, 2020.

“The Delta Aquariids are another strong shower best seen from the southern tropics. North of the equator the radiant is located lower in the southern sky and therefore rates are less than seen from further south. These meteors produce good rates for a week centered on the night of maximum. These are usually faint meteors that lack both persistent trains and fireballs,” AMS stated on its website.

Storyful contributed to this report.