(meteorobs) Major fireball event over SouthEast last evening...

[Bill Cooke]

Last night at approximately 2:27 AM CDT (2013 August 28 07:27:22 UTC), all 6 NASA allsky cameras in the SouthEast picked up a very bright fireball (peak magnitude ~ -11, 2 magnitudes brighter than the Last Quarter Moon) that MAY have produced meteorites. The cameras were completely saturated, necessitating a manual solution. This may very well be the brightest event our network has observed in 5 years of operation.

Using two stations, we have derived the following crude parameters:

Start location: 84.943 W, 34.969 N at an altitude of 97.4 km
Last location: 84.578 W, 35.206 N at an altitude of 37.9 km (this is NOT the lowest point; other stations show it continuing)
Speed: 23.7 km/s
Peak brightness: -10.9
Mass: ~45 kg (roughly 0.3 to 0.4 meters in diameter)
Radiant: RA - 336 +/- 2 deg, Dec +9.8 +/- 4 deg

We will work to refine the solution tomorrow. 

Composites from cameras stations:
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072723A_02A.png
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072722B_03A.png
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072722B_04A.png
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072724A_07A.png

Videos (Windows Media Format):
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072724B_02A.wmv
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072722B_03A.wmv
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072722B_04A.wmv
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072724A_07A.wmv

Light curve from Huntsville camera:
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/ev_20130828_072722_hsv_lc.png

Approximate ground track:
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/special/20130828_072722/path.png

Regards,
Bill Cooke
NASA Meteoroid Environment Office