(meteorobs) daytime fireball, near Graham NC

[Chris Peterson]

>I honestly thought that since I wouldn't be able to put
>this up until the following night I'd be a crowd of "me too"
>sightings. I'm honestly very surprised I'm the only report - though
>mine is pure chance. I was on the road on the way to work and happened
>to be looking almost straight at it when it happened.

There's no accounting for how fireballs get witnessed. My website for 
reporting them is pretty high on the radar in Colorado- I get hundreds 
of reports a year, and all the TV and radio stations give out the link 
any time there's a fireball reported. Sometimes, my cameras will catch a 
fairly ordinary event, like a mag -6 fireball, and I'll get dozens of 
reports. Sometimes the cameras will catch something extraordinary, like 
a mag -10, 10-second long fireball, and I'll get no reports at all. 
There are some obvious things- distant fireballs are more likely to be 
reported, because they are seen near the horizon. Also, fireballs 
happening during commute time get reported more often. But all in all, 
there are a lot of events which don't have a logical pattern of 
witnesses at all.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven Kolins" <smkolins at mac.com>
To: "Global Meteor Observing Forum" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) daytime fireball, near Graham NC



On Jan 4, 2008, at 8:49 PM, Chris Peterson wrote:

> Some basic problems:
>
> -If a witness saw a fireball 15° above the horizon, it was almost
> certainly more than 100 miles away.

I agree - I think the second observer was really looking at a contrail
lit by the sun - it was near dawn.

However I think that such a distance makes the flash even more
spectacular. I honestly thought that since I wouldn't be able to put
this up until the following night I'd be a crowd of "me too"
sightings. I'm honestly very surprised I'm the only report - though
mine is pure chance. I was on the road on the way to work and happened
to be looking almost straight at it when it happened.

I had a chance to gander back at the crescent moon and it was dim
compared to the flash - the meteor trace through the sky was about the
brightness of the moon.

>
> Try to work out the radiant. Could this have been a Quadrantid? I
> recorded several bright fireballs in the dawn sky that were part of
> this
> shower. If your own measurements are accurate, this meteor was most
> likely over Virginia, probably north of Lynchburg.

It was probably east of Lynchburg, near/over Charlottesville or beyond?

Could it have been a Quadrantid? Running Stellarium back to the time
and turning off the atmosphere I'd say it's likely.

I had wondered about space debris....

=    -   -  - - -  -   -    =
Steven Kolins