Re: (meteorobs) FIREballs

To: Meteor Observing Mailing List <meteorobs@latrade.com>
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) FIREballs
From: Lew Gramer <lewkaren@tiacdot net>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 16:04:10 -0400
Reply-To: meteorobs@latrade.com
Sender: owner-meteorobs

At 05:09 PM 4/18/97 -0200, you wrote:
>The brightest I have EVER seen was about -20.

Really, Bill, -20 at night??? (For folks just getting familiar with the
magnitude scale, this is just 250 times less bright than the sun, and 1600
times brigher than the full moon!)

This is by far the brighest night-time fireball I have ever heard of - by
at least a factor of 100! How did you estimate such a bright magnitude
(what did you compare it too)? And what other effects did you observe from
the event? Electrophonics, sonic boom, fragmenting? How long did the train
last? I'd guess this is the event that created your fashionable necklace?

BTW, another curious (probably dumb) question: at what level of apparent
brightness could a meteor actually produce perceptible HEAT for an
observer? How much of the recombination energy is emitted in the infrared?

Lew