(meteorobs) It must have been a Camelopardalid!
Richard Kramer
kramer at sria.com
Mon Mar 23 00:29:39 EDT 2009
I was just taking the dog for his last walk of the night. At around
02:50 GMT (23:50 EDT) I was heading back towards home, with, as
usual, my eyes on the sky rather than the ground (too dark to see
much of the ground anyways). While walking generally southwest and
gazing somewhere between Gemini and Leo, an enticingly slow, greenish
white, magnitude -2 meteor cruised from due north toward a point on
the southerly horizon a bit west of due south.It passed by the
western edge of Gemini. There was a faint train of a few fractions of
a second. The meteor's path traced back to the north roughly through
the North Star. It became visible a little south of a point due west
of the bowl of the big dipper and extended well past Gemini to a
point about due east of Orion's knees. I'd estimate that it traversed
well over 45 degrees of sky, perhaps nearly 60 degrees. It brightened
to magnitude -3 during the last few degrees of travel. Because of
it's steady brightness, extreme slowness, and wonderfully long track,
I'd rank it as one of the most beautiful meteors I've ever seen!
Unfortunately, I've accumulated too much of a sleep deficit over the
past few days. As tired as I am, it would be pointless to go back out
to attempt some formal observing. I'll have to be content with
this isolated, but spectacular, anecdotal bit of good fortune.
Richard
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