(meteorobs) Just witnessed a major fireball Oct 29, 2008 0128ut - Colorado

[Thomas Ashcraft]

Update :  I posted a preliminary report and video of the event. Due to 
the vast distance from my location ( 300 miles or more ) the fireball is 
unimpressive in my video but the camera did capture the full path and 
the forward scatter audio on two radios is very beautiful. The 
spectrograms are posted as well. The documents should produce a lot of 
good data.

See:
http://www.heliotown.com/Fireballs_October_29_2008_Ashcraft.html

Of possible interest to all-sky camera operators:  My Sentinel system 
happened to be triggering on twinkling Venus at the moment of the 
fireball so the capture box missed the fireball path.  Yet, the fireball 
does appear in a Sentinel still image.  But, since I split the video 
camera signal into a full time video stream recorder ( iMac/iMovie) I 
was still able to capture the full path of the fireball.  Splitting the 
video signal into two separate recording methods is advantageous in 
moments like this.

Of possible interest to radio meteor observers :  This fireball made 
only a moderate intensity radio reflection commensurate to its 
magnitude. Sometimes the very largest fireballs make only moderate radio 
reflections. This is always interesting when this happens.

Hopefully there will be much more to report tomorrow.

Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft






Thomas Ashcraft wrote:
> October 28, 2008  1928 MDT  ( October 29, 2008    0128:50 UT   )
>
>  I am pleased to report that I just eye-witnessed a major fireball event 
> out my window. This fireball was traveling east to west, possibly over 
> central Colorado. It was long trailed, turquoise and green, and shed 
> sparks.  I am pretty sure that Chris Peterson at Cloudbait captured it.  
> It might have been right over Chris's observatory or maybe north of 
> him.  Not sure.  From Chris's raw logs it looks like this fireball may 
> have been at least 300 miles north of my location.
>
> Interestingly, as I look at my radio charts, the forward scatter signal 
> was rather small compared to the size of this meteor. 
>
> I expect you will be hearing further reports about this particular 
> fireball and if someone captured it to film it will be stunning.
>
> I will post my data tomorrow and am hoping for more reports from Colorado.
>
> Clear skies,
> Thomas Ashcraft
> New Mexico
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list meteorobs: meteorobs at meteorobs.org
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email: owner-meteorobs at meteorobs.org
> http://lists.meteorobs.org/mailman/listinfo/meteorobs
>
>
>