The Meteor -- It's a Fireball

[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

[AUSMCMLXXXV]

those pics are exactly as i saw it too.
good find

cheers

[leon]

Now that would have been a sight to behold, I have only seen this sort of thing once, and that to was a beauty, and it was only last year.

leon

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Yep, I've only ever seen one like that too. It was at an SVAA night last year just after almost everyone left. There was only 3 of us left and all 3 of us happened to be looking up at the Leo Trio location pointing out where the Trio is, and it shot through exactly where we were looking. Lit everything up. (I think Eric was one of the 3)

Another time last year, Darren stayed up at my place to watch a meteor shower. We were laying on recliners and watching the show when one bright one shot from low in the east and left a tail right across the sky until it vanished over the western horizon. Nowhere near as bright as the other one, but it left a beautiful 'fast' white line the whole way!

[alphamone]

wow, this might actualy be what i saw, but i didnt see a trail though, though i am up in canberra.