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Re: (meteorobs) - meteor sighting Tuesday morning
Here in LA, one of the local channels had a piece about the FL
sightings. There was some video footage, which showed a lot of
"trailing sparks". They said it was a Russian rocket debris. I also
heard of some Russian rocket debris, causing a sighting in Oregon
recently.
I have a tape, & can get a video-scan of it. If people want, I can
send it as an attachment.
Chip wrote:
>
> 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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