[meteorite-list] RE: Not space junk

From: Joel Warren <marley2010_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:37:32 2004
Message-ID: <385045707.976160305675.JavaMail.root_at_web349-mc>

Hi Geozay,
Whatever it was, it was pretty darn cool. The best thing about it was the
"fragmentation" of the object with the "glowing" pieces falling off of it
and falling downward. Like I said before, looked a lot like the Peekskill
video but didn't last as long. I just finished putting in a report to the
fireball observers page. i'm going to watch the paper tomorrow and listen
to the local talk radio and hopefully someone else saw it. Our talk radio
here covers all the way into SW New Mexico, so I might call in and see if
anyone else might of saw it.

Best...
Joel

------Original Message------
From: GeoZay_at_aol.com
To: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Sent: December 7, 2000 3:06:10 AM GMT
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] RE: Not space junk


In a message dated 12/6/00 6:01:03 PM Pacific Standard Time,
marley2010_at_usa.com writes:

<<
I attempted to fill out the fireball report, but when it came to telling the
coordinates, I was stumped. Best way I can describe it. I was walking
almost due south when all of the sudden I saw, and the best way i can
describe this is from my vantage point, the bright fire ball appox 30 feet
or so above a group of houses, not thirty feet about the ground ofcourse,
but what appeared about 30 feet to me, certainly not straight up in the sky,
but much lower towards the horizon. Ok, now, facing due south, in Amarillo,
the path it took appeared to be towards the SW, like toward Portales NM, in
that direction. And, like I said, I saw it dropping parts, much like the
Peekskill video. I was thinking "hot damn, that has to be close" but as I
watched it trail off to the SW, I realized there was no way it could be. >>

Okay, getting a little better picture of what you are describing, it now
seems that you are describing a possible meteor and not space junk. I at
first thought you indicated it crossed the sky....a good bet that it was
space junk if you did. But reading what you said above, I don't get this
impression anymore. The slowness you described in a previous post also
reinforced the concept of space junk re entering. But you indicated the
sighting was very low on the horizon. This would explain the slowness.
Meteors low on the horizon will appear much slower than they would if
directly above. As for the direction of travel...it could be perceived
traveling in a direction somewhat away from you as well as towards you,
again
due to being low on the horizon. Meteors low on the horizon are very far
away. This one probably an easy 150 miles distant. This far distance is the
cause of meteors appearing slow. Actual determinations of direction of
travel
is mostly guesswork. I wouldn't give too much in the way of accuracy for the
direction of travel on low horizon sighted meteors. Anyhow, if what I
described above is what you basically saw, then it most likely a fireball
meteor.
GeoZay

_______________________________________________
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list


______________________________________________
FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com
Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
Received on Wed 06 Dec 2000 10:38:25 PM PST