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(meteorobs) a meteor with train




Date:        Jun. 18, 1998
Time:        local 20:26, which is 16:26 UT. (+/- 1 minutes)
Location:    Longitude  117:34:42 (east), Latitude  +40:23:47, Elevation 860 m.
             Xinglong, Hebei Province, China
Description: It was still not dark yet. I took my daughter (5 years old) to
             the roof to watch the evening glow. There was one or two stars
             around zenith (or slightly southeast). It's slightly cloudy above.
             The sun went down about one-hour ago, but the mountains around
             could be clearly seen. When I pointed some small white area
             among some mountains (slightly lower than where we stood) to my 
             daughter and told her that it was fog, which was in northwest,
             I saw a very fast flash in the north going down almost vertically.
             My first thought was that was an Iridium flare (I observed some
             before at the same site), but immediately I realized it was a
             meteor. It was very fast, and the duration for its reaching to
             maximum then disappear was (I felt) much shorter than 1-second.
             And it did leave a white train there, which lasted at least
             several seconds (I thought it should be more than 10 seconds,
             for it's always there before I took my daughter back to room
             to find my watch). It happened almost in the north direction
             of where I stood, about 30 to 40 degrees above horizon, and I
             had a feeling that it was very near to me. I have no idea about
             its magnitude for I have no experience with visual observation,
             perhaps only comparable to the brightest star on sky? But it
             was near the corner of my field of view, and the sky was still
             quite bright, ... I think that it might be slightly brighter
             than some Iridium flares I observed under similar (cloudy)
             weather, so it might be around -2 ? Anyway, this is the nearest
             meteor I've ever seen, and the only one I saw a train.
Question:    Could this be a fireball? Should I report it to somewhere else?

Thanks, Jin
========================================================================
Jin Zhu                           | Tel.: +86-10-62759888 (O)
Beijing Astronomical Observatory  |       +86-10-68392030 (H)
Chinese Academy of Sciences       |       +86-314-5053035 (Schmidt dome)
P. R. China                       | Fax : +86-10-62759888
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email: zj@bac.pkudot edu.cn or jinzhu@sun.ihep.ac.cn
WWW Home Page: http://vega.bac.pkudot edu.cn/~zj
Pager: zhu@mail.263dot net.cn (only Sub. line) OR +86-10-64256688 PIN 82333
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