(meteorobs) Various fireball reports

Bruce McCurdy bmccurdy at telusplanet.net
Fri Nov 21 12:22:19 EST 2008


> It seems that in the last 6 months there has been more & more large bright
> fireballs in the early evening hours. Many seem to occur when the sky is
> still too bright from the setting Sun for good camera detection.
> Or is this just my imagination?

    YCS: No such worries in this case. Despite the seemingly early hour of 
5:27 p.m. the fireball occurred a full hour after sunset here in Edmonton, 
with the Sun more than 8 degrees below the (opposite) horizon. It would have 
been quite a bit darker than that in Fort McMurray or Saskatoon, somewhat 
brighter in Montana. This thing was observed over a pretty broad range.

    This is front page news in Edmonton today. Edmonton Journal story is 
here (I compressed it into a TinyURL): http://tinyurl.com/63bns4

    Of particular note is the extensive comments section. There's a few UFO 
and/or Santa Claus thorns among the roses, but many eyewitness accounts, 
from the guy who was out to slop the pigs to the driver whose two-year-old 
daughter exclaimed: "LOOK, WOOOOWWW".

    I was particularly interested a brief report that said simply "I saw two 
firballs at same time." The Bartlett video posted by Kim Hay appears to show 
a second, fainter trail just to the right and seemingly parallel to the 
bright one that fades out, then comes back for a brief encore. A local 
member wonders if this was a binary asteroid or was a single body that split 
during entry. Not sure if there's any way of knowing that.

    Here also is a non-interactive piece from the Edmonton Sun: 
http://tinyurl.com/56uumu

    Bruce
    *****







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