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(meteorobs) Peculiar meteor seen in binoculars
Several evenings ago I saw a peculiar meteor with my 10x50
binoculars. It appeared within the field of view, and it
was "wide". That is, instead of a thin streak such as the
ones I usually see with the binoculars, this one had a
significantly extended width. It was like an extended
object hit the atmosphere going sideways. It was probably
about +5 magnitude and was pretty short also. What I'm
wondering is how often meteors such as this one are seen.
Now that I think of it, with "one-power" (i.e., 1x7, but
not "naked eye" since I wear glasses) I saw another kind
of odd one a few nights earlier. It was about +1 or +0
and went pretty much straight down in the west, more or
less below Vega. The odd thing is that it had no train or
trail or wake or anything like that -- it fit very well
the old expression "a falling star". I've seen at least
one other one that looked like that. How common are
meteors with no train or wake, no streak but just a
rapidly moving starlike point of light? (These two were
not satellites; I go satellite observing almost every
clear evening and have seen lots and lots of satellites!)
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu - Austin, Texas, USA
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