About 9:20pm AEDST last night, I was standing outside looking up, contemplating whether to set the scope or camera up.. I decided not to, as it was very windy and the transparency was (as usual, lately) poor.
While looking up, a nice orange (sporadic?) fireball streaked from zenith towards the South-East, covering about 30° of sky. It moved fairly fast, and was over in about 3 seconds, but it had a nice flickering/sparking tail that was about 2° long.
I also saw a very nice fireball Saturday night while viewing at a dark site. Lasted for about 1-2 seconds and lit up the area while it broke up. It was green in colour. It was in the western sky (heading west) about 20 degrees above the horizon. Seems to have been a few fireballs lately. I don't think they are related to the recent meteor showers (Leonids and Geminids) since they are long over.
Yeah they are great. I was also lucky enough to see another one going back about 3 months ago. Except this one happened just before sunset while the girlfriend and I was driving to volleyball. We saw this brilliant streak in front of us (Northerly direction about 15 degrees above the horizon) which once again was green and breaking up into fragments, lasting for about 1-2 seconds. Pity it didn't happen at night as it was pretty bright!
About 2 years ago i remember coming home from work and i got out of the car and the whole front yard lit up in a bluish-green colour, like a welders arc, i looked up and there was 2 parallel orange streaks in the sky above my head, i remember emailing Ted Dobosz about it and thats when i heard the term "Bolide" for the first time.....i have never had that ever happen before and not since either, it travelled in an east to west direction.....but it was really amazing! I notice when i see a bright meteor that it rarely leaves a trail it looks more like a fast moving light bulb!
I have an Mpeg from the Peekskill meteor which was a witnessed fall and resulted in a damaged car from a piece of the stone that fell....anyone interested give me your email address and i can email it!
I was also lucky enough to see another one going back about 3 months ago. Except this one happened just before sunset while the girlfriend and I was driving to volleyball. We saw this brilliant streak in front of us (Northerly direction about 15 degrees above the horizon) which once again was green and breaking up into fragments, lasting for about 1-2 seconds. Pity it didn't happen at night as it was pretty bright!
