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(meteorobs) Fireballs of '98
With all the discussion of bright fireballs seen during the '98
Leonids, I thought it might be worthwhile to (again) mention the -14(?)
fireball I saw on the evening of 17/18 1998 in central Georgia, USA.
Leo had already reached a fairly good altitude and the meteor itself was
foreshortened to a considerable degree. The wake of the meteor was
easily as wide as the full moon, and quite a bit brighter. Along the
length of the wake, "sparkles" were quite evident and although the
"matrix" was definitely a silvery color, I would venture that almost
every color of the spectrum was visible in the "sparkles." My
impression was of the meteor "sizzling" but I cannot state equivocally
that I heard anything electrophonic because the most vivid aspect of the
meteor was the psychological impact it had on myself and my observing
partner -- I was completely awestruck and my partner later admitted he
was a bit frightened -- the fireball seemed to be heading our way!!! It
left a persistent train that coiled in the upper atmospheric winds for
about 12 minutes before fading from sight. I honestly doubt that I will
ever see such a beast again in my life.
The monster should have been visible over a wide area of the
southeastern US so I was a bit surprised that I never read or heard
anything about it. I tend to think there are two reasons why this was
so ...the cloudy weather had just dispersed at our site in time for the
display, so there was probably quite a bit of cloud cover elsewhere, and
the event occurred at or around 3:30 AM local time. One interesting
thing, it was followed by another fireball of -10 about twenty minutes
later that had all the same characteristics of the first one---colored
sparkles and silvery, wide wake. That second fireball had a persistent
train of about four minutes.
Kim Youmans
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