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huge fireball

Daniel-K

By Daniel-K
in The Astro Lounge

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MorningMajor

MorningMajor

Posted
Posted

The BAA are after more information - (Hope it's ok to post this - if not mods, please delete)

"Clearly this was a very major fireball event and any BAA members who saw it, or who may have been contacted by non-astronomers who witnessed it, are asked to collect as much information about the sighting as possible and send it either to the Meteor Section Director at docjohn@dircon.co.uk or to meteor@britastro.org.

Useful information will include the name and location of the observer, the precise time of the event, the altitude and azimuth of the start and end points of the visible track, the position of the observed track against the background stars, and a description of the fireball's visual appearance, colour, etc. together with any unusual features."

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Albenn

Albenn

Posted
Posted

I had just been observing the Andromeda Galaxy and was scanning the area between Cassiopeia and Andromeda at about 25x through my scope when I saw what I first thought was a flock of Geese! Frightened the life out of me. I looked up from the ep and saw around 6 or 8 fireballs. Amazing sight but didn't hear the 'booms' as experienced by others.

I was quite lucky to see this event really as I wasn't going to do any observing that night as I was a little tired. Glad I changed my mind.

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acey

acey

Posted
Posted

i saw it to going e to w at about 80 deg above my horizon. watched the whole thing from birkrig common by ulverston in cumbria. epic. also did anyone hear the rapid serise of deep "booms" about 30 sec after it had dissapered over the western horizon,

I heard a single boom 4 minutes after seeing the event. I made an estimate of location based on the sound and posted it here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/162947-fireball-sound-and-location/

According to my estimate the source of the boom was off the north-east coast of England.

MorningMajor - thanks for those links, I've sent a report to BAA.

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

Posted
Posted

So it seems that this was seen pretty much from anywhere in the UK and Ireland. That must have been one big object that fell out of the sky. Great images and videos here. Amazing stuff.

Astronomy Ireland were talking about it in the papers today. They called it a meteor "shower". They wouldn't hash their words like most news reporters.

I havent heard any reports or multiple objects, apart from when the main one broke up.

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nightfisher

nightfisher

Posted
Posted

Check this frames animated from me motion detect epic and wow! :)

wow2.gif

Cliff, that is seriously good, and makes me feel a lot better about missing it, though i was out with scope (telescope, not the charity) but cloud had the better of it, looks like it might have been a space shuttle tool box

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Stargazing_Cliff

Stargazing_Cliff

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Are we any closer to identifying if it was natural or man made?

How about a vote?

At moment they want all information as possibly so it all help determine the trajectory of the fireball.

i need to get degrees and angle of my garden fence as on my captures of it went straight along that fence. even that help trajectory with angle degrees of my garden.

bet i have inspired lot people to start making little skycams.

I'm still chuffed me cheap little asda cam that i modded took motion captures of fireball.

This is cool dude thats gathering all info on that fireball below is old video

John mason from BAA :) talking about types of meteor watching.

October 2012 will be great time as it's Draconids october 7 and 8 and maybe dawn October 21st see lot meteors/shooting stars and maybe more fireball's to come maybe.

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acey

acey

Posted
Posted

Are we any closer to identifying if it was natural or man made?

How about a vote?

My vote at this stage would be man-made given the very low speed of the object, nothing like a usual meteor. The fragmentation to my eye looked the way I'd expect a disintegrating aircraft or spacecraft to look - a burst of numerous and mainly orange fragments, suggesting relatively low temperature compared with what you might expect from a cosmic object with much higher velocity. Also a number of these fragments extinguished fairly quickly, before reaching my horizon. From my timing of the sonic boom I also reckoned it was pretty low. Will be interested to see what the final verdict is but that's what I'm guessing so far from my own observations. A bit disappointing to be honest - I would much prefer it to have been something that came from the edge of the solar system rather than a factory on Earth. Still a great firework display though.

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BargeGazer

BargeGazer

Posted
Posted

I am very suspicious that all the "experts" seem to be keeping very quiet on the matter. And no one in the press seems to be covering much either. Sounds like it is being kept quiet whatever it is.

So at the moment I am leaning towards the man-made and maybe even a bit of "oops, that shouldn't have happened"!

But then I am a cynic! Much prefer to think it has been traveling for a few billion years, just to give us a beautiful display as it vapourised.

David

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x6gas

x6gas

Posted
Posted

No disrespect intended to anyone but I don't think you can gain the faintest inference by looking at it whether it was man made or not. I'd also love to know how people can estimate how high it was or how big it was; as far as I know it is pretty impossible to even estimate one without some indication of the other... which is why both birds and Venus are frequently mistaken for alien visitors. An assessment of the object's airspeed is also pretty much meaningless unless you know how high it was. Three unknown variables, none known quantities and unless you can pin one of them down somehow that's an equation that Einstein himself couldn't solve if he had Hawking, Newton and Pythagoras doing his chalk work for him.

The suggestion of the Borg scout ship is about as rational!

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starman1969

starman1969

Posted
Posted

At moment they want all information as possibly so it all help determine the trajectory of the fireball.

i need to get degrees and angle of my garden fence as on my captures of it went straight along that fence. even that help trajectory with angle degrees of my garden.

I'm going to return to the spot where I saw it. I will take a series of images to make a panorama, and hopefully be able to sketch the trajectory. I did have a good landmark to go off, St Anne's Pier.

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

Posted
Posted

My vote at this stage would be man-made given the very low speed of the object, nothing like a usual meteor.

Their is a lot of talk about the speed of it. Meteors tend to enter the atmosphere at a much higher speed then this object did. I really do not know.

The fact that no one really can be sure whether it was natural or man-made (or are not saying so), leads me to think that it could have been a man-made top secret object by some government that simply crashed and burned.

Its possible.

No i am not forming a conspiracy theory. Governments/millitary do not have to inform us all about projects they are working on.

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gary1968

gary1968

Posted
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I read on another forum that it is unlikely to be man made due to its trajectory. According to the conversation there very few man made objects travel east to west so is therefor more likely to be natural what ever it was.

Might be nowt in this) but thought i'd post it anyhoo.........

Gaz

Sent from my U8815 using Tapatalk 2

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x6gas

x6gas

Posted
Posted

My vote at this stage would be man-made given the very low speed of the object, nothing like a usual meteor.

Their is a lot of talk about the speed of it. Meteors tend to enter the atmosphere at a much higher speed then this object did. I really do not know.

That's my point; you can't tell much about it absolute air speed. All you can judge with your own eyes is the angular velocity, but the actual speed will depend on how high it was. Of course, the atmosphere is only so thick, so there will be limits around this...

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x6gas

x6gas

Posted
Posted

I read on another forum that it is unlikely to be man made due to its trajectory. According to the conversation there very few man made objects travel east to west so is therefor more likely to be natural what ever it was.

Might be nowt in this) but thought i'd post it anyhoo.........

Gaz

Sent from my U8815 using Tapatalk 2

That would make sense Gaz....

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