[meteorite-list] Images of Wales meteor

From: (wrong string) ørn Sørheim <bsoerhei_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:21 2004
Message-ID: <200310032237.AAA04138_at_mail41.fg.online.no>

Hello All,
What worries me a bit that so many meteor-interested
and competent people (even inside NASA) can't agree
what a meteor do or should look like!

There doesn't seem to be too many good meteor pictures
around, that's a central problem. And seems like nobody
have issued a scholarly work on meteor cloud recognition
yet...

As it says quite clearly - if you read what the websites
write about what happened before the boy took the first
picture - I hardly did believe for a second that the bright head
of the meteor was a recording of an explosion or afterglow
of such. It is for shure just the low sun shining on an
extended meteor [burst] cloud.
..His boyfriend had to observe and tell the boy that there
was this weird cloud in the sky .. then the boy had to grab
the camera.. most probably zoom it .. then take the picture.
Would take some time all this...

As for your arguments Robert:
1. Sonic boom.
There isn't always [heard].
There wasn't in New Orleans, and lot of other cases.
Are you shure this was be a really big meteor?
The boy's picture now obviously turns out to be
zoomed to a great extent...

3. Observers.
We are at the start of collecting evidence. Observers
don't post here, right.
Took some days to get picture II, more times to develop
the paper, slide ones..
Magnitude -20!, where do you get that number from?
BTW, most meteorite dropping fireballs cluster around
-9 I read somewhere.
Also this was a daylight occurence, remember.
'Fireball' is not the correct word to use probably,
because it would be easier to spot the cloud afterwards,
than with an average, or even less than average, fireball
in a bright sky.

3. Contrail shape.
Damit!, in the second picture from Jon Burnett, it is
**clearly** starting to corkscrew.
Also I guess if you watch those missile launches from
Vandenberg base you are thinking of a MUCH longer timespan
than the short time between picture 1 and 2 from the
boy.

Some things that do point to a meteor:
- The trail is obviously turning more downwards in its track
compared to the ordinary jet contrail you see in the sky.
(I have definitely seen and videotaped my fair share of those,
and know their looks :-) )
This is definitely pointing towards a meteor origin.
- The trail is not split.
I'm convinced this mean you can rule out an airliner.
(But not a fighter plane, of course).
- The *sleek* shape of the trail, in picture 1.
It has not the kind of 'puff-puff' outline you would always see in
a rocket launch, or within seconds from a retarding airliner
contrail. I think this is an important observation!

The question of afterburners.
An afterburner is an addition to the standard operation of a
jet engine. If you cut off the afterburner, the main part of the
engine is still running and should show a contrail, for shure?!
I would hold it very unlikely that both parts of the engine
was cut off, very unusual occurence, I would think..
And why should the turnoff of an afterburner show up as
a large cloud like that, shouldn't it rather trickle down
to nothing. This is not during the WWI and that kind of
irregular engines, I would assume.


Regards,
Bjørn Sørheim


At 12:30 03.10.03 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>My turn to chime in on the Wales photos. First of all, it's great
>that it's now photos PLURAL, since this rules out Photoshop mischief,
>and it allows some degree of triangulation which can be used to
>approximate altitude.
>
>I'm leaning toward backlit aircraft contrail for three reasons --
>the first of which has been mentioned, but the other two have not:
>
>1. No sonic boom. If this was a bolide, it should have produced
>a whopper! Not a single report of a sonic boom.
>
>2. Where are all the observers? This occurred near sunset -- an
>optimum time for people to be outdoors in (evidently) nice weather.
>If you think the contrail is impressive, consider what the brightness
>of the bolide should have been to produce it -- we're talking at
>least magnitude -20, probably considerably brighter. People don't
>miss fast-moving second suns. How is it that witnesses would be
>attentive enough to spot the contrail, yet inexplicably miss the
>far more spectacular bolide that produced it just seconds or minutes
>before?
>
>3. Perhaps the best evidence is the nature of the contrail itself.
>Because a bolide has a downward component, any contrail it produces
>will also. Differential velocities of upper atmospheric winds versus
>altitude will cause the contrail to corkscrew and scramble fairly
>rapidly, much like the contrails we see from Vandenberg rocket
>launches on the west coast. In contrast, jet contrails are at
>relatively constant altitude, so while they, too, get blown by the
>wind, all portions of the contrail are exposed to roughly the same
>wind direction and velocity. The result is that jet contrails
>keep their shape longer, merely getting "fuzzier" with time. The
>minutes-later image of the Wales contrail doesn't show any evidence
>of kinking/corkscrewing, and that perhaps is the strongest evidence
>against it being of space origin.
>
>Best,
>Rob
Received on Fri 03 Oct 2003 06:37:22 PM PDT