(meteorobs) Green Fireballs

[Wayne Hally]

Mike, also remember, last January the online entry form for the AMS
fireballs was broken; it required an e-mail to Bob with all the pertinent
information to get the data in. Very few people went through all the
trouble.  A more valid comparison might be rates beginning in February,
after the online form was repaired.

Wayne

----------------------------------

The best we can say now, as Bob Lunsford put it is: this is just a
'percieved increase in fireballs'. It does seem to me like the frequency of
major fireball events has gone up in the last 4 weeks, but there is little
data publically available to compare this to in order to make a conclusion
one way or the other. This increase is very apparent in the AMS reports
alone, but considering growth factors and different means of collecting the
AMS reports, its not a fair comparision year over year, especially since the
total reports have always been increasing since inception of the fireball
reporting form.

A tally of fireball frequencies reported over a few years from a wide area
meteor camera network I think would be the best way to quantify current and
average fireball rates and test this theory. I'm sure if this percieved rate
increase were significant, it would stick out to the folks who operate the
camera networks and they would recognize and report it.

Thanks,

Mike