[Tamtarn]

Thought I would post this on a new thread. This info is from the website SPA (The Society for Popular Astronomy) UK

SPA Meteor Section - Fireball Observing "An edited version"

A fireball is an especially bright meteor. By internationally-agreed definition, any meteor that attains the magnitude -3 or more with respect to the stars and planets is classed as a fireball.
Some meteors, especially the faster brighter ones, may leave a glowing ionized train along their trajectory after they have disappeared. Rarely the train may last several minutes. Very rarely, typically seen only with deep penetrating meteors, a dust or smoke trail may be left along the object's flight path.

This is what we saw on Tuesday night 2nd October

* We saw a bright flash of light which lit up across the whole valley

* The fireball was at least -4mag

* The colour core was brilliant white to yellow to Aqua the trail was brilliant yellow to aqua to green

* It left a glowing ionized train along the trajectory staying there for at least 2 min

* Then an orange brown dust trail stretched across a large part of the sky then it rose higher then gradually dispersed after 15 mins

We now know we saw a fireball meteor

Found a couple of shots of 2 other fireballs on the web. The one we saw seemed to be much bigger.



Gives you an idea what it was like..........AMAZING

Barb