A meteor with a green coloured tail flashed across Perth's skies last night, prompting several calls to Perth Observatory.

People as far south as Dunsborough and as far east as Chidlow reported seeing a flaming ball course through the heavens from about 9.30pm.

Observatory astronomer Andrew Williams said some witnesses reported seeing the meteor break up

"One hundred thousand tonnes of junk comes into earth's atmosphere each year," Mr Williams said. "Most of it is in the form of grains of dust and grains of sand and burns up in the atmosphere. That's a shooting star."

The bigger the flying object, the longer it remains visible.

"Anything that survives burning up on entering the earth's astmosphere usually breaks up in mid-air and disintegtrates, though some falls to the ground and we see a fireball 50km up in the sky. This was something bigger but nobody reported sounds so it wasn't particularly big or wasn't particularly close."