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FIREBALL!!

ollypenrice

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

Posted
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Gordon Bennet, I'm glad two other people here saw this with me or I might have put it down to failing sanity...

A real fireball. Now I know what one is like. It came in from the south east heading west, a blazing streak far brighter and redder than the few good ones I've seen. But then it REALLY flared and was bright red and also vivid blue, reaching about the diameter visually of the full moon. I had time to think, Yikes I hope it burns up before it hits someone! Truly the most amazing sight.

Olly

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lulu57

lulu57

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Don't! They'll think we're old!.......

Do you remember Space Patrol as well? :)

But we are!

Can't recall Space Patrol (was probably too busy watching Champion the Wonder Horse). :D

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DeanWatson

DeanWatson

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Like a streak of lightning flashing 'cross the sky

like a flighted arrow winging from a bow

A mighty cannon ball he seems to fly, you'l hear about him everywhere you go,

the time will come when everyone will know the name of CHAMPION THE WONDER HORSE!!!

The sad thing is, thats not cut and paste, its from memory - CLEARLY watched too much TV in my formative years!!!

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lulu57

lulu57

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Yup. I remember a fair few of those lyrics.

Remember 'White Horses'?

On white horses let me fly away

To my land of dreams so far away,

Let me run....to the sun....

Rubbish programme, but memorable theme tune.

A bit off topic, aren't we? :)

Well...I have never seen a fireball, but I'm going to look really hard this Summer! :)

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DaveS

DaveS

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XL5...oh no! no! no! Now I know I'm old..:)

I did see...not really a fireball, but a bit better than your bog-standard meteor last night...from London yet...yes, through the LP.

I was taking some rough-and-ready shots of Lyra (See my post in Imaging) and this...thing... streaked across from, as I recall, due south-north through Cygnus. Unfortunatley, 1) I was using a 180mm on my 5D, so too narrow, and 2) was getting a series of darks, so had the lens cap on :).

As I recall it was pure white, mag -2ish and looked like it was giving off sparks as it went. Don't recall the time, but a look at my shooting data might give me a clue.

Dave

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RobH

RobH

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Interesting Olly.

I too saw one on Saturday night, going south to west, which had the same colour characteristics, but wasn't as big as you saw.

I was 2 hours drive north of Beirut, near the Syrian border at the time, and it was probably a bit before midnight local time (1 hour ahead of you in France, 2 hours ahead of the UK)

Wonder if it was the same one?

Cheers

Rob

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  • 2 weeks later...
ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Rob, could be. I was running around looking after three observatories and failed to take careful note of the time. A subsequent (non astro) guest also saw something fitting the description on that night. He was a bit to my south near Marseille and felt he saw it explode into fragments. His timing agrees with yours.

Olly

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ROBBO45

ROBBO45

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Sounds fantastic. I've not seen one that impressive but did see a very bright green fireball last year.

Hi all, please bear in mind that this is my first post. Years ago whilst working in cumbria one winters night around 9pm I with a workmate saw a bright green, what I thought was some type of meterorite moving from east to west at great velocity. It was only in veiw for seconds. I have never seen this type of thing before or since, my workmate, a local also stated he had never seen anything like it. What is the difference between a fireball and a shooting star? and is it possible that what I saw was a green fireball.

Any help or suggestions welcome

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Talitha

Talitha

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Hi Robbo, from what i've read, the IAU considers a meteor of magnitude -4 (or brighter) to be a fireball. Extremely bright fireballs are sometimes called bolides, especially when they explode... i'd love to see/hear one some night. :)

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Boy, pretty difficult to guess what Mag -4 would look like because it is so hard to compare a point of light with an extended source. As far as timing goes, I very much doubt that any 'shooting star' sighting lasts as long as a second. However, they are so memorable that the eye/brain 'retain' them, or so I would think. I remember seeing an arrowhead fight of ducks in perfect silhouette against a near full moon in the telescope one night. Subjectively my impression was of pin sharop outlines. However, how long does it take a flight of ducks to cover half a degree of sky? The vision must have been a mental constrution of some kind, albeit one based on a real event. Incredibly striking, though.

Anyone else had a LTOTO? (Lunar Transit Of Terrestrial Origin. I just made that up...)

Olly

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Talitha

Talitha

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There's always a chance. :) They're definitely not as common as meteors, but judging from online queries and reports, they're not a rarity either.

You and your co-worker might have seen a piece of orbital debris, commonly known as space junk. I'd read somewhere that when something burns up in the atmosphere and produces a green color, it's because of the chemical composition.. can't recall what it is, though.

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yeti monster

yeti monster

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Yup. I remember a fair few of those lyrics.

Remember 'White Horses'?

On white horses let me fly away

To my land of dreams so far away,

Let me run....to the sun....

Rubbish programme, but memorable theme tune.

A bit off topic, aren't we? :)

Sorry to interject, but that happens to be one of my favorite tunes on my ipod :), a remixed version, but the essence is still there...

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