(meteorobs) 20061101 Fireball heard and seen from a London, UK.

[Malcolm J. Currie]

On a space-art listserve, Garry Harwood reports _hearing_ and seeing
brilliant fireball on 2006 November 1 17:26 seen from London's Hyde
Park.

Garry's original report was:

   Walking home across Hyde Park in central London this evening at
   5.26pm local time under beautifully clear autumnal skies, I was
   lucky enough to see a very bright bolide as large in apparent
   angular diameter as the Moon in its present gibbous phase, and
   considerably brighter, streak across the southern sky and break up
   into many fragments while travelling towards the western horizon.
   Not only was I stunned by the beautifully pure spectral colours
   '(electric' green surrounding a brilliant white 'head', with
   'hydrogen prominence pink' tail and fragments), but I was also
   surprised to hear what I can only describe as a distinct hissing or
   buzzing sound as the object fell towards the horizon. A muted
   'double' sonic boom was heard almost exactly seven minutes later.

   I did a quick sketch with colour notes immediately prior to sending
   my e-mail showing the changing appearance during flight (it was
   already bright and well progressed as it passed into my field of
   view, the entire event lasting perhaps three or four seconds,
   flaring up a few times prior to fragmenting -- If I had had my wits
   about me I would have looked for shadows!)

When questioned about nearby objects making the noise, Garry wrote:

   There were plenty of metal objects within a small radius of where I
   stood (metal railings, a metal and wood walkway, weather vane on
   top of a roof mounted clock above a riverside restaurant.) I'll
   look into this a bit further. Once I had recovered I almost thought
   I had imagined the sounds -- it certainly gave rise to a lot of
   head scratching and chin rubbing afterwards as I completed my
   journey home.

I asked for details of direction and speed.  Garry responded:

   Well, not terribly accurate I'm afraid. I tried to relate the path
   to local objects and the horizon -- only the gibbous Moon and
   Arcturus were plainly visible. The bolide made a fairly steep angle
   (55-60 deg) with the south-west horizon (I was facing roughly due
   west at the time) and when I first became aware of it I guess the
   elevation would have been about 40 deg or so. It rapidly (Perseid
   -- Leonid style) traversed some 20 deg, fluctuating rapidly in
   brilliance with a bright terminal flare. Fragmentation into several
   much smaller objects (two of which survived perhaps a second
   longer than the rest) extinguishing some 20 deg or so above the
   south west horizon. I'm guessing a path going from Aquila though
   Scutum-Serpens-Ophiuchus? -- something like that, but I'm very
   uncertain.

Garry would like to know if there were any other reports of this
event, especially if anyone else heard it, or any further information
of use to researchers in electrophonic meteors that he should provide.

Of course, with many commuters tuned into their iPods or mobile
telephones most peolle will have missed it.  Perhaps some of millions of
`surveillance Britain' cameras may have captured the event, if only
indirectly to give an accurate time.

Malcolm Currie