An astronomer has captured what is believed to be the first video recording of a lunar impact flash on the island of Ireland, according to Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP).

The lunar impact flash – an explosion of light caused by something hitting the Moon’s surface – was spotted by Andrew Marshall-Lee, a final-year PhD student.

AOP said lunar impact flashes are rare events, seen only very occasionally, with this believed to be the second recording in the UK.

Mr Marshall-Lee used the Armagh Robotic Telescope (ART) to capture the footage on Friday in a moment he said will stick with him “for a lifetime”.

“Normally what you would do is take hours of footage, run it through some software you write and then it’ll ping out if anything has popped up,” Mr Marshall-Lee told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

“I was very fortunate in that I just so happened to be looking at the screen at the right time and I saw it happen with my own eyes.

“That’s the luck of it – I couldn’t quantify it.

“It was very special to me and it will be a moment that sticks with me for a lifetime.”

The observatory said lunar impact flashes usually only last fractions of a second and are difficult to detect.

It said they are more likely to be detected during major meteor showers when the Moon passes through streams of debris left behind by comets and asteroids.

The objects responsible for the flashes are typically very small, often smaller than a golf ball, and are far too faint to be seen with a telescope while in space, it added.

When they strike the Moon at extremely high speeds their kinetic energy is rapidly converted into heat and light which briefly vaporises material at the impact site and produces the flash seen from Earth.

AOP estimates this particular object was travelling at about 35 km/s.

Mr Marshall-Lee observed its impact during the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, making it the most likely origin of the object which caused the flash.

AOP said it will continue to investigate the object’s origin and a video of the flash it created can be seen on its website.