(meteorobs) Morse Code or Dash-DOT!!-Dash Meteor (N. Calif.)
Chris Peterson
clp at alumni.caltech.edu
Mon Sep 24 19:49:21 EDT 2007
Hi Wayne-
Very nice. Looks to be several times brighter than the nearly full Moon.
Quite a few people must have seen it that early in the evening. If you
can get another angle on it, I think you'll find it was fairly deep in
the atmosphere when it fragmented. This didn't skip or go back into
space- it came down into denser air and fragmented, producing a bright
burst. Most of the original mass was lost in under a second at that
point. What was left continued, and then experienced a second
fragmentation. The resulting terminal explosion probably consumed what
was left. Most likely no meteorites were produced, but sometimes
fragmentation events can produce meteorites because very small
components may slow down fast enough to avoid ablating away.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Watson" <sierra_mtnview at sbcglobal.net>
To: <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 5:33 PM
Subject: (meteorobs) Morse Code or Dash-DOT!!-Dash Meteor (N. Calif.)
A fireball blazed over our Sacramento skies late last night, and was
caught
on my video camera. I would guess this one left the atmosphere. No
reports
of debris that I know of yet. See a composite and QT mov (movie) file of
the
event at <http://speckledwithstars.net/meteor_beginnings.html>. Scroll
to
the bottom.
I suppose it might be possible some debris fell over somewhere by
Redding;
however, presently this is just a guess. Perhaps visual observers saw
it. It
occurred around 11:07 PM (PDT). It appears to have glanced off the
atmosphere and kept going after the burst (Dot). It was going NW from
here
in Nevada City, CA.
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