'Fireball' spotted in East Bay sky from meteor shower

Ive seen 2 similar things over my work place in the last 6 months, its an awesome sight to see. So much light, and things breaking off etc but no noise at all, pretty weird.

I just wish we could see pics/video so clearly of a ufo.

Im am trying to figure out which direction this meteor came in from. Can any of you help please? After reading the news pieces and figuring out where everyone was at (im from Missouri and not familiar with California) It seems that there were reports of a fireball going across the sky from south, east and now north all twards the same area. With two different colors. Im just curious. Also, the scientist said this is not related to the up coming meteor shower.. with it being so close to that time frame I wonder why he was so sure. Aside from this moving slower than the typical meteor, what is the difference between this one and the ones to be expected?

right now i just saw a very bright object going east from chester never had camera
so if anyone sees this and they are east of chester please go and have a look the time was 10 past 7pm gmt
it is moving with a slight weave not a zigzag hope someone gets it on vid

just to add it sort of sped up when a plane flew near it
and two of my three kids saw it too and they are now spooked


also like to add i only went out to see if it was a clear night for meteorite watching

Ive seen something like this back in the beginning of august. It streaked just like a normal shooting star, except it lit up the whole night sky and surrounding area like someone shot up a flar
e. it even had the whole green light trailed by orange and red streak to it. After a few seconds the light vanished then I heard quite a loud boom, like an M80 going off.

After I got back home, I looked up to what it wad and found out that it's a type of meteorite called a Bolide. However, I could be mistaken here but the characteristics were similar nonetheless.

Originally posted by mrsdudara
Im am trying to figure out which direction this meteor came in from. Can any of you help please? After reading the news pieces and figuring out where everyone was at (im from Missouri and not familiar with California) It seems that there were reports of a fireball going across the sky from south, east and now north all twards the same area.

It's not uncommon with events like this, that there are dependencies between reports, for the reasons that, meteors can be deceptive regarding their direction of travel, and people are generally not very good at estimating the actual direction. Unless a meteor is seen directly overhead, it can be difficult for even experienced meteor observers to say which way it was going. It can be worked out if you discard the most unreliable accounts, and average out the more trustworthy reports. The best way is to analyze photographs/footage taken at known locations.

There are people out there who will already be working on the analysis of reports and images/footage.

This page showing a map of the distribution of reports received by the AMS so far might be useful.

I'd also recommend checking out past threads about similar events for clues on how to do this, like this one for example:

NEW!!: Mystery Meteor Flashes Across British Skies

See the links I posted towards the end of the thread, where you can find professorial analysis of the event.

Here.s another:
Meteor Over the United Kingdom

Originally posted by mrsdudara
With two different colors. Im just curious.

Color in meteors is extremely subjective. It's often the case that two (or more people) seeing the same meteor at the same time and from the same location will describe different colours.

I recall my fellow meteor veteran Norman McLeod mentioning in the past
that observed meteor color is one of the most subjective parameters in
meteor watching. No two people see color the same way at low light levels
or for the very short periods of time that most meteors are seen. My
experience over the years tends to bare him out on that for sure.
Although I usually observe solo now, back in the 70s and 80s, I had many
group watches with both neophytes and experienced folks and rarely would
anyone agree on the color of an observed meteor. Bright fireballs tend to
"shock" the observer also and can lead to emotional reactions and
recollections that may not be entirely accurate.

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

If you look over reports of previous fireballs, you will see that in most cases people report different colours: The American Meteor Society Fireball Logs

Originally posted by mrsdudara
Also, the scientist said this is not related to the up coming meteor shower.. with it being so close to that time frame I wonder why he was so sure. Aside from this moving slower than the typical meteor, what is the difference between this one and the ones to be expected?

A meteor shower is caused by the dust (meteoroids) ejected from the surface of a comet. Since the comet is orbiting the Sun, those ejected meteoroids will also be following similar orbits - a bit like a swarm of bees all flying the same direction (if bees flew straight without deviating as they do in real life). So we have a long trail of meteoroids, effectively following the comet, and flying more or less parallel to each other.

The result of this is that when Earth encounters this meteoroid trail (or "dust trail"), meteors from the same source/comet will always appear to travel away from a certain part of the sky that is known as the radiant. That is part of the reason why we can classify meteors as belonging to certain showers, or not as the case may be. Another reason is that shower members will always be traveling at similar speeds (although this is not always obvious since perspective can influence apparent speed very heavily).

In this case, it's obvious that the fireball was not an Orionid, since the Orionid radiant (close to the constellation Orion - which is why they are called Orionids) was in the Eastern part of the sky at the time of the event, and we have at least one photograph that shows the meteor pointing back to an area somewhere in the South part of the sky, and obviously not pointing back to the radiant, which it would do if it was an Orionid:


Source: The American Meteor Society

There is also another good reason why fireballs from meteor showers are unlikely to make it deep enough into the atmosphere for sonic booms to be heard:

11. Is there a chance of a meteor from a meteor shower or storm reaching the ground as a meteorite, and is it dangerous to observe meteor storms?

The meteoroids which make up a meteor shower or storm are very fragile in nature, and are composed of a somewhat “fluffy” composite of material from which all volatile material has escaped, due to many trips near the sun. This material readily vaporizes in the upper atmosphere, and is given the descriptive name of “friable” material. While quite spectacular to watch, a meteor storm presents no real danger to the viewer, who is protected by miles of atmosphere.

Source: The American Meteor Society Meteor Sower FAQs

Having said that, there have been reports of possible booms from meteor shower members during very strong meteor shower activity in the past, but we know most members of meteor showers are generally too small/fragile to make it to below around 50 km where booms may be heard.

From past experience/recovered meteorites, we know that asteroidal material (which is generally harder/denser than cometary material) is much more likely to be the cause of the type of event we are discussing in this thread.

The graphic below is from The American Meteor Society. This is a catalog of 'current known' reports that have been made about this fireball event. I'm sure as time continues it will expand. If you go to the site there is an interactive map that lets you zoom in and click on each individual report which is very interesting in the fact that no two people report the same thing (IE: color, length, direction, etc.)



Also from what I've been gathering from various News reports that interviewed astronomers, they're saying that this wasn't from the Orionids Meteor shower. This is mentioned in the compilation video below at about 2:15

Looks sort of missile like? Or a rather large shooting star o,o

I live in the area but missed it as well. Still going with my gut feeling that a light fixture fell from the sky.

reply to post by JohnnyAnonymous

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Sadly its overcast here in the UK so im not going tom see anything again tonight.

Hope someone is able to record anything of value for us.

Originally posted by maryhinge
reply to post by JohnnyAnonymous

 

this is a pic from NLO meteorite live feed

ill keep checking for better ones as i messed up the first pic which was much better
i think this is a live link as they keep changing

heres a link for live feeds
www.meteorscan.com...

ps no laughing but this as taken me months to learn i,e loading u tube and images and the likes

edit on 18/10/2012 by maryhinge because: same pic twice

You got nothing on me pal !

Meteor scan always has an image of some kind constantly. I been watching for half an hour now and nothing. The thing about it is, if they shut it down you wouldn't know because there is no indication. Still nothing.

hmmm yes i just checked meteor scan and nothing at all on the graph. probably just a glitch(?)

reply to post by RoScoLaz


i think they are blocking live feeds as the screen is just blue now