Quaoar, the colours seen in bright meteors/fireballs is a debatable subject, greens are usually associated mostly with bright meteors/fireballs. It can be a combination of factors, including the exciting of rarefied gases in the upper atmosphere, in the case of green, oxygen, by the heated meteor ionising the particular gas. Some variables include meteor speed/angle, viewers visual perception and yes even the compostion of the meteoroid (no copper ones tho
).
I read of quite a few colours were used by witnesses to describe this beauty!
I have seen plenty of green ones, including a monster late geminid while out comet observing in dec 2004, that blinded us, it was so bright, to our dark adapted eye's, we couldnt even clearly focus on its form, it just looked like flashes of sheet lightning!
Ken, you sure that wasnt tuesday nights strange sightings they were talking about (Possibly fueled by the wide coverage of the fireball the night prior - that usually happens, gets ppl looking up at the stuff we are always looking at
) over ballarat?, the fireball that caused this imaged smoketrain was monday evening 8:30 pm for you guys.
while i'm here re distance viewable of an individual meteor, i forgot that with REALLY bright earthgrazer fireballs, they can in fact be easliy seen sometimes further afield than a average meteor. So it is possible for one like this to be seen over a 1000 klm footprint, centred on centerline! which makes my path plotting easier
http://www.amsmeteors.org/richardson/distance.html