Anyone see a fireball over the Borders or Cumbria?

[scotastro]

A brilliant fireball was observed at 21.08 BST on 5th Oct 2008 heading almost due east starting in Aries. The bright trail was orange coloured, but then it suddenly exploded with a brilliant green tinged flash, more than -12 magnitude. A shower of small fragments all moving in the same easterly direction, but diverging slightly, came from the flash and faded rapidly. Only one fragment remained following the original trajectory for a slightly longer period before it faded too. Overall it covered about 12 deg of sky.

It reminded me of one of those cheap firework rockets that produce a small shower of sparks as they go "pop" - of course no sound heard as the fireball exploded.

Difficult to judge how far away it was but at only 24 deg above the horizon for me - observers further east would see it much higher.

Mike

GAC

Galloway Astronomy Centre

www.gallowayastro.com