Society for Popular Astronomy

Graham · Joined: 09 Dec 2006 Posts: 164 Location: West Yorkshire

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/16/texas-fireball-satellite

Stella will love this quote!

Frank Ryan Jr · Joined: 10 Mar 2007 Posts: 166 Location: Shannon, Ireland

By the looks of the speed and angle of it.
I hate to say it but it looks like a regular (if there is such a thing) fireball.
I may be wrong though.

Still,
imagine that in the night time!
feck it !
Imagine SEEING the thing in the DAYTIME!
how cool would that have been!
_________________
Frank Ryan Jr
IFAS rep
Shannonside Astronomy Club
__________________________________________
Meade 10'' SCT, ETX-125PE, Skylux 70mm, Bresser 10 x 50 Binos & Me Peepers

stella · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:17 pm Post subject:

...yes, I'm ecstatic.
It shows that being a Professional doesn't mean that
you can't make an enormously foolish comment.

One newspaper wanting to get an expert quote regarding
the collision sought out the advice of someone from the
London School of Economics!

Maybe they would like me to give my considered opinion
on running the economics of the country, Laughing

Graham · Joined: 09 Dec 2006 Posts: 164 Location: West Yorkshire

david entwistle · Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:10 pm Post subject:

There are links to images of what are thought to be the resulting meteorites here.
_________________
David Entwistle

Alastair McBeath · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 572

Frank: I don't know about 'regular' fireballs, but there are 'natural' and 'man-made' ones. Natural fireballs are due to mostly quite small interplanetary particles (centimetres and upwards; larger = rarer), and have the usual range of meteoric apparent speeds. Man-made fireballs due to space-junk re-entering the Earth's atmosphere are exceptionally slow-moving by 'natural' meteor standards. While a meteoric fireball may last a second or two, maybe up to a few tens of seconds sometimes (the longer, the rarer), man-made fireballs tend to start in the tens-of-seconds category and go up from there to a few minutes.

For more notes on separating natural fireballs from other man-made objects (not just re-entries), see the upgraded fireball observing webpage at:

http://www.popastro.com/sections/meteor/fireball.htm .

Stella: But a professional is able to display their ignorance in a far more authoritative manner, don't you think?

Alastair McBeath,
Meteor Director, Society for Popular Astronomy.
Meteor homepage: http://www.popastro.com/sections/meteor.htm
E-mail: <meteor@popastro.com> (messages under 150 kB in size only, please)

stella · Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 10:48 am Post subject:

"Stella: But a professional is able to display their ignorance in a far more authoritative manner, don't you think?"

...yes, and to be able to shroud it much more eloquent and verbose
language (or is that Jargon?)

Alastair McBeath · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 572

Followers of this Texas fireball story may be interested to know that it happened on quite a night (February 13-14) for imaged fireballs overall.

A clutch of four bright events was recorded on video from Italy then, at 20:03, 20:26, 21:52 and 05:16 UT, with a further fireball caught on video from Normandy in France at 02:11 UT. The Texas event was around 03h UT. The brightest Italian meteor was that at 20:03, estimated at about magnitude -17! It could have dropped meteorites.

Spectacular still images of all four Italian events can be seen at:

http://meteore.forumattivo.com/report-bolidi-f30/13-14-febbraio-2009-la-notte-dei-bolidi-e-dei-superbolidi-anche-in-usa-t105.htm .

Although much of the page is in Italian, the photos speak for themselves, and there is also a facsimile of the Spaceweather.com homepage for February 16 which featured both the Texas and Italian fireballs, plus a text version of the Spaceweather notes (in English).

The Normandy video images can be seen via the 'météores/bolides' link on observer Stéfane Jouin's homepage:

http://www.jouin.eu/index.php?page=may_sur_orne.htm ,

then go to February in the little 2009 calendar link. The text on these pages is of course in French.

Though there is no reason to think any of these events were related to one another so far, it is an odd coincidence they should all have happened that night!

News has been coming through to the Meteor Section since of a further possible meteorite-dropping fireball recorded on video over Finland, at 21:39 UT on February 16-17. Observer Esko Lyytinen reported perhaps three main fragments up to a few kg in total weight may have made landfall on the Finnish snowcover. If no fresh snow has fallen, he was hopeful the main search could begin today (Feb 21).

My grateful thanks go to Ferruccio Zanotti (one of the lucky Italian video observers), Karl Antier and Esko Lyytinen for the Italian, French and Finnish details respectively.

Alastair McBeath,
Meteor Director, Society for Popular Astronomy.
Meteor homepage: http://www.popastro.com/sections/meteor.htm
E-mail: <meteor@popastro.com> (messages under 150 kB in size only, please)

david entwistle · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:19 am Post subject:

david entwistle · Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 5:52 am Post subject: