(meteorobs) 25/01/08 French fireball - preliminary results

[Karl Antier]

Hi all meteor enthusiasts !

After first analysis of the observing reports from the 25/01/2008, 17h12 UT
event, we managed to make a first estimation of the trajectory of the fireball.
It was observed from nearly every place in France, and spotted in Spain and Italy
too.

The magnitude of the object must be within -12 and -15 bounds, as it has often 
been reported brighter than the full Moon, and was spotted while the Sun had just
set.
The strange characterisitcs of the meteoroid paths are first its very steep angle.
At first sight, it seems to be close to 70-80° ! The second interesting point is
its high luminous path. It began to become visible while it was 110-120 km high,
and fragmented at an altitude of 60-70 km. That's propably why it was so easily
observed from everywhere, even from Northern France. It also explains why we didn't
record any infrasound signature of the fragmentation.
The terrestrial projected path is very short, and is located in Southern France.
It goes from North to South, and the end of the luminous path is close to Beziers.
The beginning of the luminous path is only one degree in latitude more to the North.
Reported observation lasting 4 seconds for the entire fireball let us guess its
reentry speed should have been close to 15-20 km/s.

That's what we get from last week reports...
Waiting some more photos and reports now to confirm all that...

Clear skies and bright fireballs !
Karl