Fireball or what?

[mikeash]

Hi Everybody,

While setting up my scope I looked north to see an amazing fireball coming from roughly mid point between Orion Auriga and Gemini and heading more or less South.

My Location Whakatane NZ time was 9:12 local time (08:12 UT)

As I watched it seemed to break up into about 3 large pieces (and some smaller ones).

At first I thought it was somebody larking around with fireworks but it was traveling straight and across the sky rather than up or down and it wasn't in an arc.

Duration about 3 or 4 seconds, Colours were a sort of orange red combination and sparkling just like a firework. Very spectacular and I have never seen anything like this before.

Searching the web now for any information. I do hope someone else saw this

Mike

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Sounds like a Bolide, a fireball/meteor that breaks up on its travel through our atmosphere. I saw a few of these during the 1999 Leonids. A couple of earth grazers too.

[Phil]

i seen a small meteor on the 11/03/07 near Orion. About 9.10pmm