huge fire ball

[leon]

Hi all

Iv'e been doing astronony for a long time, but have never in all those years seen a fire ball like i saw about 10minutes ago.

At first i thought someone had let of a sky rocket.

I was huge, streaked across from Nth East toward the West, was as bright as a car headlight and totally green and blue in colour, then i broke up in about 5 or 6 piceses and dissappeared.

First time i have ever seen one like that, fantastic

Cheers Leon

[Rob_K]

Sounds like a carbonaceous chondrite - relatively rare, contain chlorite or serpentinite, with olivine and lots of other goodies including organic carbon compounds (new life from the cosmos???). I've seen two in my life, one when I was a small child in Melbourne (can still picture it, but I can't remember what I had for dinner!). Spectacular!

Cheers

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Wow Leon, you lucky sod!!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I'm totally jealous.
Wish I'd been there to see it.

[Ric]

Great stroke of luck Leon, I'm still waiting to see my first one.
I can imagine how spectacular it must have been, you won't forget that in a hurry.

cheers

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Great Leon, this will stick in ya head for years. I remember my first time I can still remember the three hundred before it too (Leonids Meteor Shower, November 16th, 1998, drooooooooooooooooooooooooool) Now that was a show....

[leon]

It was spetacular, and like you all say i will remember it for a long time, it's a pity we dont know when they are coming, could get the camera ready, if you know what i mean

Cheers Leon

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Would be nice to know the times, also nice if you had a camera at the time. I didnt at the time of the leonids, wish I did then those that didnt see it would drool too. Its just too hard to describe in words. Well hopefully between 2031 - 2034 we will get another go.

[leon]

Gee Andrew, i'll be an old man by then, nearly 80, but i hope i'll still be doing Astronomy.

Cheers leon

[fringe_dweller]

Nice one Leon, might of even been a Geminid eh! Gotta love the disintergrating ones :-))
hey Andrew, where did you view the '98 peak from? I also remember the absolutely stunning conditions we had for that here, couldnt of been a better night for it, 10 out of 10 in everyway, indeed for 5 days/mornings I viewed them, conditions were awesome, from memory. Same as for Hyakutake.
We dont seem to be having that sort of luck anymore - perfect days and even weeks either side of events, but somehow clouds of some sort always turn up at critical times, very strange!? thats happened to me all this year now, what the..!?

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

We saw it at the SVAA group night!!!!! It was at 9:46pm.

Man-o-Man it was bright!!!! and as Leon said, bits were breaking of in an orange display like fireworks. It is the brightest Meteor I have ever seen!

Immediately after the yells and 'WOW's we stood there dumstruck and none of us spoke for about 20 seconds! I think we were in shock!

It lit up our observing area and the sky. It was as bright as looking into one of those bluish/white headlights on new cars and it actually moved quite slow leaving a smoke trail with the smoke curling into patterns. The Orange bits falling of were just as spectacular as the main fireball itself.

Could have been a Geminid coz it came from under Orion and travelled SW across almost half the sky.

The event only lasted about 6 seconds but has burnt itself permanently into my memory.

[spudrick]

WOW must have been a Ripper!
Report from the paper (Herald Sun ) today
"FIERY SKY SHOW"
"Hundreds of Melburnians reported seeing a flash of light in the sky last night. The light which may have been caused by a metorite, was spotted over Williamstown about 9.00pm."

[Garyh]

Now that would be the BEST to see!!! Still waiting to see my first big fireball and one that breaks up into pieces, spectacular!! You Lucky guys, Leon and Ken.
Did it leave a persistant trail for anytime afterwards?
Cheers Gary

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Gary, the smoke trail only lasted for about 30 seconds that I could notice.