On September 12, 2016, at 21:44:07 UT, a -9.2 mag fireball appeared over northeastern Poland. The precise orbit and atmospheric trajectory of the event is presented, based on the data collected by six video stations of Polish Fireball Network (PFN). The PF120916 Piecki fireball entered Earth's atmosphere with the velocity of 16.7 km/s and started to shine at height of 81.9 km. Clear deceleration started after first three seconds of flight, and the terminal velocity of the meteor was only 5.0 km/s at height of 26 km. Such a low value of terminal velocity indicates that fragments with total mass of around 10-15 kg could survive the atmospheric passage and cause fall of the meteorites. The predicted area of possible meteorite impact is computed and it is located south of Reszel city at Warmian-Masurian region. The impact area was extensively searched by experienced groups of meteorite hunters but without any success.
Results are pesented in "PF120916 Piecki fireball and Reszel meteorite fall", "Contributions of the Astronomical Observatory Skalnaté Pleso", by A. Olech. P. Żołądek, Z. Tymiński, M. Stolarz, M. Wiśniewski, M. Bęben, T. Lewandowski, K. Polak, A. Raj and P. Zaręba.
The Polish Fireball Network is the project established in 2004, which main goal is to constantly monitor the sky over Poland in order to detect bright fireballs occurring over the whole territory of the country. It is run by amateur astronomers associated in Comets and Meteors Workshop (CMW) and coordinated by astronomers from Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, Poland. Today there are over 35 fireball stations belonging to PFN that operate during each clear night. In total over 70 sensitive CCTV cameras with fast and wide angle lenses are used.
