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(meteorobs) July 26-27 Observation
On July 26-27 at approximately 10:15 my wife and I observed something we
had never seen before. We live in upstate New York and observed this in
the Town of Berkshire in northern Tioga County. It was a bright, clear
night with a very small number of clouds and the Milky Way was clearly
visible.
My wife observed what she initially thought was a jet coming out of the
South (closer to Scorpio than Capricorn). She saw it first at an altitude
of about 30 degrees. She noticed that it had no flashing lights and that
it appeared to be moving about twice as fast or faster than jets normally
travel. It moved nearly overhead (approximately 15 degrees west of the
azimuth). She took her eyes off it for a minute or so, because we were in
the middle of meteor watching, when both of us were startled by a bright
(approximately as bright as a full moon and bright enough to light up a
large portion of the sky), single white flash (with what appeared to be a
brief red afterglow), from this object very near Polaris. After the flash,
it continued on to the north slowly dimming before it faded completely
about at altitude 15 at almost due North.
Was this a fireball? If it was a meteor, why was it illuminated for so
long before and after the flash? What caused the flash?
We are not experienced meteor observers so perhaps this is a common
occurrence to many of you out there. If it is common could someone explain
what it was and if anyone else saw it we would be interested in hearing
what your observations were.
- Pat McNally
pom1@cornelldot edu