[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: (meteorobs) Lyrid fireball? - Another Lyrid FB ?



Hi all,

I was wondering about the Lyrids too - I actually saw a bright Fireball while driving on Long Island (NY) . The first thing that came to my mind was that it was a lyrid .
I saw it on the 14th of April (23:36 pm) which personally I think it was a bit too early for it to be a Lyrid. The street lighting was quite bright and I could only see the brightest stars . I estimate a magnitude of around -6 (+/- 2 due to windshield , cars coming from the opposite direction and street lighting - could'nt take an SLM of the area) and it was clearly coming out from where the radiant is.

Clear Skies
Martin

At 12:42 PM 4/17/01 -0400, you wrote:
In a message dated 4/17/01 12:33:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu writes:

<< The meteor was at least
 as big as my fist and brilliant orange. It streaked across
 the sky like a giant bottle rocket for about three seconds
 from east to west in the northern sky." >>


Here is a comment from an old (1985) issue of "Astronomical Calendar" by Guy
Ottewell.  This is from the "Meteors" section (before it was taken over by
Alastair McBeath):

April 15-30:  "April Fireballs" -- an annual sparse irregular shower of
bright meteors some of which reach Earth as meteorites.  The radiant is not
determined; they come from the region of the ecliptic and equator between 20h
and 24h (Capricornus, Aquarius, Pegasus, etc.).

    To add to this, I myself also recall seeing a reference to these type of
fireball meteors -- and an attempt to tie two shadow-casting/meteorite
dropping fireballs in April 1962 and 1969 together -- in (I believe) the
September 1970 Sky & Telescope and the April 1971 Natural History magazines.

-- joe rao
To UNSUBSCRIBE from the 'meteorobs' email list, use the Web form at:
http://www.tiacdot net/users/lewkaren/meteorobs/subscribe.html

 ------------------------------------------------------------
 Visit my NEW photography Page
 http://www.geocities.com/martingd.geo/Foto/fotoindex.html
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 My personal HomePage
 http://www.geocities.com/martingd.geo
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF MALTA
 Official Homepage
 http://www.geocities.com/maltastro
 ------------------------------------------------------------


References: