(meteorobs) (Meteorobs) comment on being green

[GeoZay at aol.com]

>>I've long since concluded that bright fireballs are almost always  green. 
The exceptional cases are those which are not (and these are almost  
always reported as white).<<
 
Several times during my observations in the  90's, I'd see a very bright 
fireball that was all white with no hint of color  and was baffled that there 
weren't any shades of color that I can make out. Most  of the fireballs I've 
seen that showed a shade of green were of the cometary  shower  types. 
Based on that, I wouldn't want to chase down every green  tinted fireball seen 
for meteorites. Your legs might get overly tired. 


>>The only other color that tends to show up in witness  descriptions is 
red/orange, and a close look reveals that this is almost  always at the 
end of the path, when it is easily explained as the output of  a cooling 
blackbody radiator.<<
 
My best and very first sonic boom producing  fireball did indeed ended at a 
fairly deep red color...at the time I described  it reminding me of a lit 
cigarette being tossed out in the dark....but redder. I  honestly don't 
remember if it had any other colors and I don't have any records  to refer to 
anymore. At the time I was hypothesizing that a dark red at the end  of its 
flight might be a signature for a meteorite dropper rather than any  reported 
green. I've seen many cometary meteors such as the perseids,  Leonids  and 
Quadrantids that displayed a green tint. 
 
You mentioned about red/orange color. I've noticed  during my observing 
years that a fair number of regular Taurid meteors were a  dingy orange in 
color. I then thought that this might be some indicator of the  make up of the 
meteoroid for this shower. 
George  Zay

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.meteorobs.org/pipermail/meteorobs/attachments/20111017/0202a248/attachment.html