The brightest I ever saw, looked like it crashed in the mountains, I half expected to see a flash from an explosion when it struck ground!
Erik I've never heard a meteor, and I imagine that I've already seen the best
meteor one could ever expect - short of becoming a meteorite. Unfortunately, I was only about 4, so my memory of it is not perfect. To me, the fireball seemed as large as a house. I could see significant mottling on the "surface" of the head, with bright oranges and deep reds, as it passed overhead from east to west. It illuminated my neighborhood more than the brightest Moon and all of the house and street lights combined. I was terrified and ran back into the house to tell my parents. I'm sure that "meteor" wasn't yet part of my vocabulary, because when I tried to describe it to my parents, they thought that I was exercising my always fertile imagination. I was vindicated the next morning, however, when my Dad read in the paper that such a fireball had been witnessed by others and that some even thought it might have landed in Nevada. My best estimate, given other things that I remember about that evening, is that it was in late autumn or early winter.
So, anyone else on this list interested in astronomy, or will you continue to make me feel bad that I don't have a roadster of some sort? ;-)
Kim
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of daniel turner Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 10:22 AM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] Aurigid report
Kim asked:
Is there a specific technique for estimating meteor brightness?
I've heard serious amateurs who report a bolide as "brighter than Mars, but dimmer than Jupiter." It's then easy to find in S&T the approximate magnitude of those planets that night. Right now Mars is zero mag, Jupiter about -2 and Venus is -4. For the really bright ones, the half moon is -10 and the full moon is -12. I have seen a Leonid that bright and I heard it too.
Listen for this phenomenon:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast26nov_1.htm
DT
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