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(meteorobs) Questions from Costa Rica

Hi there:

First of all, my apologies for using capitals in my last posting. It is
the custom of using upper case letters when writing to the net in
Spanish in order to avoid vowel accents. I promise it won't happen
again.

With the permission of the list, I am translating a question posted by
someone from Spain at the Astronomia mailing list, which I find
interesting. Nahum Mendez also from Spain plainly answered that he
believed it to be a meteor or a bolide. The original question read as
follows:

>The other day, I saw a bright object, which I am describing here. Can anybody 
>tell me what it was?

>The happening occurred on Saturday Nov. 22 around 19 hours (Spain time I assume). 
>The object traveled from Southeast to Northwest in an almost parallel path 
>with the horizon and, aparently, at an altitude way lower than that used by 
>planes in this area.

>I could tape it for some 2'15", in which lapse it traveled some 25 cm as measured 
>by my fully extended arms lenght.

>The object was redish-orange and it had a clearly visible tail. I was working at 
>my house's roof and at first I thought it was a plane in flames.

>The object was visible for a longer period of time but I ran out of tape. I am 
>trying to contact someone that can generate an .AVI file to send you the tape if 
>you are interested.

I have not made my comments public to the list or private to Mr. Mendez,
but from what I know, this thing couldn't be a meteor or bolide because:

1. No meteor or fireball will last minutes (more than 2 minutes at
least) crossing 
   the atmosphere.

2. Meteors travel much faster than the speed described by the
questioner.

3. The path of a meteor is not parallel to the horizon and neither it is
so close
   to it as it is described in the question.

I would like to hear some comments on this matter.

To Lew:

Thanks for your support and encouragement. I will try to reach Mark
Davis at NAMN to get some of those materials you mentioned. Please keep
me posted on those incoming meteor showers.

As far as I know, and according to my Spanish mailing list "Astronomia",
there are three minor showers going on right now, which are:

1. Virginids (VIR) from from Feb. 1 to May and a THZ of 5
2. a-Centaurids (ACE) from Jan. 28 to Feb. 21 and THZ of 25
3. d-Leonids (DEL) from Feb. 5 to Mar. 19 and a THZ of 3

Two questions here for you and the list:

1. What THZ stands for?

2. Is it possible to watch these minor showers from a mendium light 
   polluted place like my city (some 50,000 people and mainly sodium 
   lights)?

Until next time, clear skies to all.

Carlos Hernandez
Heredia, Costa Rica
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