The event happen on May 31st around 2am, approximately 1 hour after Vandeputte set up his Canon 6D Mark II with Canon 24mm f/1.4 lens and Canon TC80-N3 remote trigger to capture an astrophotography time-lapse while he slept. Around 5am, he woke up, grabbed his camera, and went back to sleep.

“A few hours later I woke up and scroll through the images to see if I had captured any interesting meteors,” writes Vandeputte on his blog. “You can imagine how I felt when I spotted not only the enormous green fireball, but also the persistent train that lingered for well over 30 minutes after the meteor exploded!”

This celestial event is called a “bolide,” and it’s actually different from a fireball. As explained by the American Meteor Society:

“A fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky. A bolide is a special type of fireball which explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation.”

What Vandeputte captured was definitely a bolide, and one with an incredibly long and persistent train to boot. Typically this kind of train lasts only a few seconds. The train you see in Vandeputte’s time-lapse lasted some 30 minutes!

Here’s a closer crop that shows the bright green remnants of the exploded meteor:

You can read the original article on petapixel.com, the full story behind this fortunate incident over on Vandeputte’s blog , where he dives a bit deeper into the techniques and technical details behind this rare astro time-lapse. And if you want to learn more about how Vandeputte captures his astro and time-lapse photography be sure to check out his e-book  as well.

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