Panels A and B: assignment of the Perseid and Leonid bolides spectra (marked in black), together with the convolution of lines (intensity and position displayed in stick diagram), simulated using the Fytik programme and a preliminary version of Meteor Master. For clarity, panel C shows separately the positions and intensities of the molecular nitrogen spectrum used in the convolution model. Panel D: experimental spectrum of the laser ablation of chondrite, calculated as a sum of all the samples measured in this study. The high-resolution spectrum, recorded using an echelle spectrograph, is marked in grey; the low-resolution experimental ablation spectrum, recorded in situ by a meteor camera, is shown in black. Similarly, the LIDB spectrum in the air from the high-resolution echelle is depicted in blue, while the low-resolution spectrum from the camera is depicted in dark blue. Panel E: synthetic spectra of the Leonide meteor computed using approximately 22 000 lines from the NIST database (Ralchenko et al. 2013) for temperature of 4667 K and electron density of 4 X 10⁴ cm⁻³. The blue line represents the simulated spectra of the Leonide meteor (abundances according to Table 1), the red line shows airglow of 78% N and 21% O and the grey line illustrates the quantum efficiency of the meteor spectral camera. Intensities of Ca I, Fe I and Cr I above 450 nm are artificially suppressed by the instrument.