(meteorobs) RE: Explosion Observed

[Richardson, Terry R.]

Bob is right this would be a fantastic brealthrough however there would be a way to tell if this were a visual GRB because it would be all over the news. Two of my colleagues at the College of Charelston are big time GRB astronomers and they have a telescope in the US Virgin Islands dedicated to visual GRB detection. Hedre is how the process works. Within seconds of a gammy ray detection by the SWIFT orbiting observatory, pagers all over the globe alert participating astronomers to get to an internet connecterd computer. The coordinates of the GRB location is emailed to their account and they take command of their particular telescope over the internet. No matter what the telescope was doing, and no matter who was running it, it is now under the control of the commands coming over the internet which direct it to photograph the suspected area in visible light to detect the GRB visible light afterglow. Neat stuff.

If a GRB were as bright as a point meteot, it would not fade all that fast and it would be front page news for all the newspapers. 
Almost certainly a GRB was NOT observed.

Clear skies,

Terry Richardson
Department of Physics and Astronomy
College of Charleston


-----Original Message-----
From: meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org on behalf of Jan Verfl
Sent: Mon 5/15/2006 6:39 PM
To: 'Global Meteor Observing Forum'
Cc: bob_becky.anderson at sbcglobal.net
Subject: RE: (meteorobs) RE: Explosion Observed
 
Hello all!

A GRB observed visualy would be a fantastic breakthrough, indeed! Anyway
this is definitely _not_ impossible, but the probability of such a sight is
enormously low and without any other evidence, there is no way to tell, if
it is the case.