(meteorobs) Re: Setting Sun's Magnitude

[GeoZay at aol.com]

John>>However, and I don't know how many times I've said this to  various 
observers 
over the years, in the case of extremely bright meteors an  individual 
viewing 
the event under a moonless nighttime sky will be so  unprepared and 
overwhelmed 
by the sudden appearance of a truly bright object  (in excess of say -7 or 
-8) 
that it would be expected for them to wildly  overestimate its brilliance. A 
meteor truly equal to the full moon in  brilliance (and naturally subtending 
a 
much smaller apparent diameter) seen  in a dark sky likely could not be 
looked 
at directly by a dark adapted  observer. In the case of the nighttime 
appearance 
of a fireball of -20 , it  would unquestionably blind the observer for 
several 
minutes. Even the  resulting brilliance of the surrounding sky during such an 
event would  undoubtedly force you to cover your eyes.<<
 
During my observing days, I've recorded about 300 fireballs. Of those, I've  
only seen two that I literally had to shield my eyes with a hand. I couldn't 
say  which was the brightest, because I was looking at two different things 
with each  meteor. One I saw the meteor itself to remind me of arc welding. I 
believe I  gave this a -19 primarily because of the shielding and it being far 
brighter  than anything else i've seen up to that point. The other was a Leonid  
during the 1998 fireball show. I was looking at a star field, when it 
occurred  out of visual sight, but the whole sky turned daylight blue and not a 
single  star was visible. I was able to turn around and see what looked like a -8  
persistent train that lasted for quite awhile. I'm not sure what the magnitude 
I  gave for this? I think it was at least -16 and considered up to -19. At 
the time  I had two wide angle guided cameras operating. Part of the view had 
part of my  observatory in each frame. After developing and printing, the image 
that  occurred while that fireball occurred, the observatory was easily 
noticed. All  the other images you can barely make it out. All the exposures were 
about the  same. I particularly noted two exposures at almost the exact same 
length with  that of the fireball occurrence. 
GeoZay