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(meteorobs) - meteor sighting Tuesday morning

First off, I subscribed to this list Tuesday after searching for a place
people are interested in meteors.  I wanted to share what I saw Tuesday
morning as it was much greater than any "shooting star" I have ever
witnessed before.  I do see that you guys are much more technical about
your sightings than I have the ability to write at this point, but I
hope you won't mind me telling you about a meteor I saw in Pensacola,
Florida at approximately 4 a.m.(C.S.T.) Tuesday morning.  I am strictly
a casual observer so forgive the lack of "hard" information.  

I just got out of my car at home and actually caught this meteor
streaking by with my peripheral vision, it was that bright and large. 
It was heading approximately south-southeast.  Now, I've seen thousands
of meteors as I am an avid fisherman who finds himself on the gulf at
night often.  Those simply have no comparison to this.  This one did not
burn up and I was able to watch it (from it's northeast) travel almost
from one horizon to the other and disappear as it continued on.  I live
on a hill here and was fortunate that the meteor traveled almost the
same path as a set of powerlines that run near my house.  The clearing
kept trees from obscuring my view.  If it was descending, the descent
was extremely small.  I would guess it continued onward, exiting the
atmosphere again.  Otherwise, maybe it found a place in the gulf.  

I can't exaggerate enough to explain how bright and large the tail was. 
It had to be quite close to me in proximity and fairly low altitude
(compared to any others I've seen).  I could actually see "definition"
in the tail meaning that one could actually see the individual strands
of fire and sparks from the meteor itself.  The tail was long enough to
take up almost a quarter of my viewable sky.  It seemed close enough
that one would almost expect to hear noise from it or a sconic boom or
something.  The whole sighting lasted at least 15 seconds.  It showed no
signs of diminishing in strength from my view.

Just to be thorough with this, I wanted to mention that it almost seemed
to change colors from a bright blue to a really bright white directly in
front of me and then seemed "orangish" as it headed toward the horizon. 
I suppose the atmosphere was the cause for the perceived color change? 
Maybe it was changing temperatures while burning?  

I've seen the different video clips on Discover, etc. where people have
caught some great ones on film.  I swear this one was comparable to some
of that footage.  Its one of those times you wished you had a video
camera because I know it has to be extremely rare.  If you have seen the
daytime footage someone once caught on a beach of one heading straight
through our atmosphere, that would be a close match to my sighting
except it was a little more colorful and defined since it was night. 
Maybe even closer to me or larger.  Whatever the case, for someone who
gives "casual" a new name in my interest in astrological things, it was
pretty exciting to see.  

Side note, after seeing this I mentioned it on an off-topic message
board I frequent.  Someone in Tampa relied the following day that there
were some similar sightings there.  I've been to busy to follow up and
see if it could have been the same thing.  I'm not sure that what I saw
was heading enough east to have gone through Tampa also.  Also, Tampa is
probably over 300 miles across the Gulf Of Mexico from Pensacola.  Hope
you folks didn't mind this "contribution", I feel a little out of my
league here after reading some of your messages for the past day.

-Chip F.
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