(meteorobs) Utah, Wyoming, Idaho Bolide 18NOV09 (Thomas Ashcraft

Thomas Ashcraft ashcraft at heliotown.com
Fri Nov 20 11:14:38 EST 2009


drobnock wrote:
> Within the Ashcraft recording during the video capture of the 18nov09
> fireball I found a distinct damper wave signature,  stronger than the
> the other seferics in the recording. The signature was in the time frame
> of the meteor being visible on video.  The wave form has a larger
> amplitude that the adjacent noise. It is a distinct click along the
> lines of a seferic noise.
>
> Please take the time to record the wav or mp4 and use a similar sound
> editing program and look for the snap or crackle whilst the meteor is
> shown.
>
> George John Drobnock
>   

George,

Regarding the VHF and ELF-VLF  radio and visual video captures here:
http://www.heliotown.com/Utah_Fireball_Ashcraft.html

Upon re-listening to my radio recordings I would say there is a 
possibility that the louder "crack"on the VLF-ELF audio channel during 
the over the horizon terminal flashing may be meteor generated.  Again 
though the problem is distinguishing the subtleties of the radio 
background sferics from that particular "crack".

Note also that the meteor in the video that is heading to the horizon in 
the video may be a coincidental and unrelated meteor to the Utah meteor. 
That meteor also may have generated the VHF forward scatter  sound and 
even the VLF-ELF audio component. It is hard to determine.  It is always 
the same problem in these studies: The ELF-VLF radio is receiving 
phenomena from a super-vast area so that pinning a sferic type of 
click/crack/pop to an individual meteor is a tough proof.

For the "Utah Fireball", I must admit that I am still trying to 
understand how a meteor that happened *literally 500 miles / 800 km* 
away from my observatory had enough power to light up the roof of my 
house.  The physics of this is blowing my mind a little!

Clear skies,
Thomas



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