Fireball

[stephend]

On Thursday 9 April at 5.21 while driving East in Mayfield Newcastle NSW I saw a bright meteor come down. It hit the ocean probably about 5 kilometers from shore. Position in relation to Bull Street Mayfield was 98 degrees. It appeared to be travelling North with a dip of about 80 degrees; in other words, it was coming almost straight down and was only visible for a second. It started as a bright yellow line and flared up to about one eighth of a degree across before vanishing behind low cloud into the sea. The speed and brightness of the event were pretty astounding. It was then bright day; if it had been dark this would have lit up the street. Did anyone else see it?

Last chance I had to see a meteorite arrive was forty years ago when one came in slowly over Inverell Northern NSW, leaving a brief smoke trail and finally exploding. My brother saw it and pointed excitedly but being a kid I looked for the wrong thing in the wrong place and missed it. Also missed seeing Sputnik for the same kind of reason.

[Liz]

Wow, lucky you Stephen, sounded like a wonderful sight!!

[Outbackmanyep]

You should report it to International Meteor Organisation
http://www.imo.net/fireball/report

That way your observation will be recorded officially!
Cheers!

[stephend]

Yes Liz lucky indeed, normally if I waited 40 years for a second chance at seeing a daytime meteor I would expect it to hit me on the head

Thanks for website outbackmanyep. I will follow that up and get famous.

[Davekyn (David)]

I did not exactly see a ball of fire tonight, but I did see the brightest & longest streak of rock I,ve ever seen, whilst looking out toward centaurus It was bright yellow and fairly thick as comet streams go. It seem to leave it's mark longer than ussual although moving just as quick as normal.
Grabbed me by suprise! It's amazing just how much rock you can see burn up whilst stargazing...and I haven't even tried looking around the marked shower zones.