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Re: (meteorobs) SoCal Report
Hi Dave,
Last night, an hour before you saw your fireball, I was driving home at
around 3 or 3:30am (10/24/99am). I saw a fireball very similar to what you
saw. I was in a will lid street, stopping in front of a bright traffic light
facing south. ...and Boom! I saw a very bright, very slow fire ball towards
south through my dirty car window. I am very surprised that I can see it under
a full moon, next to bright street intersection, bright traffic signal before
me, through dirty car window, and still see something that bright! Very
Exciting.
No, I didn't hear pop or anything, but then, I have my engine on and windows
closed, so I can't tell. One thing for sure, it was BRIGHT!!! Very exciting
indeed!!!
Oh, I was near 57 and 91 highway, Orange County, California, not to far from
you.
I was too tired to stay up and didn't see any more.
Kenneth Jang
Oh, and one quick complaint: The reason I was up so late was because I was
fixing my brand new Meade 16" Dob that came with wrong screw length and many
other problems. I am very disappointed with Meade. Oh, the manual said that
all Meade scope was fully assembled and fully tested at factory, then taken
apart for shipping safety. Ya!!! Sure!!! It took me 7 hours last night to
fix problems. So, Beware to anyone who might get a new scopes, Meade is
getting sloppy.
meteorobs@jovian.com on 10/24/99 11:48:44 AM
To: meteorobs@jovian.com
cc: (bcc: Kenneth Jang/Anaheim/MP/RSMi)
Subject: (meteorobs) SoCal Report
Last night about 04:20 AM I caught just end of a meteor. I was
looking toward the NE, away from the full moon when I saw something at
the periphery of vision on my right. When I looked to see what it was,
we get a lot of air trafic between San Diego and L.A., I saw a large
slow yellow meteor traveling horizontally toward the south about 20
degrees above the horizon over the ocean. It was just the head, no
train at all, but the head comprised of three or four fingers that
were splayed out but still one unit. It only ran about five degrees
while I looked directly at it and its size would command a -3 to -4. I
believe parts of this meteor may have struck the ocean because of its
slow speed. I heard a single pop that came from the west within
minutes that may have been the meteor but I have a major freeway (5) 1
1/2 miles to my west and I still can hear freeway noise if it's loud.
I hope someone else saw this meteor, it looked as if it had ran
under the moon with Jupitor and Saturn close aboard, lucky to have
seen any of it. I have no idea how long it was or if it left a train
somewhere along its path. I'm reluctant to call it a fireball or
bolide as I didn't see much of it at all. Like to hear more about it.
Rob, it was about 205 degrees magnetic from my location at .3 miles
west of El Camino Real, .6 miles north of HWY 78.
Rob, you are 40 miles south and 6 miles east of me at your home.
Could you give me a degree reading of the elevation of the last big
meteor we saw, I could then work out its altitude. The meteor was
traveling south to me, I noticed you said traveling north. This may be
something I would call a visual unconformity due to our locations and
the trajectory of the meteor aiming somewhere between us. To me it was
foreshortened and moving southward. To you it was longer but perhaps
you were seeing it as it moved away but appearing to move toward the
north while actually moving south. Try it with a pencil you'll see
what I mean. I ran into this visual unconformity before when I saw
high flying spy plane cross in front of the moon in '85. It moved from
the 5 o'clock to the to the 10 o'clock position. I realized that I
couldn't determine the direction it was traveling, toward or away from
me, as they both could appear the same from my location accross the
face of the moon. Something to consider in meteor reports.
Dave English
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