Around 12:30am the meteor shower picked up and during the hour from 12:30am to 1:30am several bright fireballs were observed including one that I managed to get on camera! This picture was shown on local televsion and featured on Spaceweather.com.
The above meteor was very bright and a smoke trail could be seen
for a few seconds afterwords. I had the camera pointed at about a
45 degree angle looking NE. Below is a picture showing the
relative size of the meteor using well known constellations for
comparison.
Several other bright meteors were observed and below is a montage of them with the fireball..
And finally one last fireball from 3:10am...
The very next night a CME
(coronal mass ejectoin) shot off by the sun slammed into Earths
atmosphere producing auroras. In Western Arkansas we were socked
in by high thin cirrus clouds, but my camera picked up on them.
Below is picture and animated gif of auroras.
and animated gif showing aurora better:
