[meteorite-list] Image of PA/MD bolide passing near M31

From: MeteorHntr at aol.com <MeteorHntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:07:32 EDT
Message-ID: <ccf.562291e5.378b7254_at_aol.com>

In a message dated 7/12/2009 2:02:18 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
mojave_meteorites at cox.net writes:
>From the Baltimore area, the Andromeda Galaxy
is much lower in the sky at 1:06 am on July 6th -- about 27 degrees.
The object track at the top of the image passes very close to the
9.3-magnitude Hipparcos star #003223, which was at azimuth 57.0,
elevation +27.5 at 1:06 am
Rob,

While I got Cs in geometry in High School and didn't even get into the
advanced math beyond that, I do try to figure some things out.

HOWEVER, I don't claim to be an expert. I did visit Mike Haney and his
scope the other day.

His base of his telescope was level to the ground and I took a piece of
paper long ways and rested it on the base, with the right corner of the paper
at the lower point of the scope, then I made a mark up the left side of
the paper at the angle where the scope was pointing up. I made a line from
that left mark down to the right corner and with a borrowed carpenter's
square on site, it read roughly 17 degrees elevated.

In the field I am not interested in getting the math perfect, and
realizing that his photo didn't show the end of the fireball, and I knew others
with more exacting measurements could work out the more exact numbers later.

But when I saw the 67 degree number, I knew that was way off from where he
had the scope set up. Maybe it was pointed much higher up and he was
mistaken when he showed it to me, or maybe others were wrong.

Also, in my amateur sleuthing, we turned the scope to look at the cap his
gazebo had. The cap occupied 1/2 of the field of vision. Holding my arm
outstretched and holding my thumb up, with me standing beside the scope, my
thumb nail was about the same size as the cap. So this told me (I think)
that the field of vision he was capturing in his photo compared to the
entire sky was about twice the size of my thumb nail at the size on my stretched
out arm. A tiny little zone.

Again, I am not good with math, but logic would tell me that if it was the
fireball in his photo, that the fireball would have been in his camera's
scope's field of view for an extremely tiny fraction of one second. Unlike
an airplane that might be in a field for many seconds.

To me, I imagined that the "bumpy" looks in the light lines might have
been from "non oriented pieces" tumbling as they are flying in, and as the
different sized faces of the rocks are revealed as it crosses, the light gets
slightly brighter (or wider) then not over and over. Again, I am not an
expert with airplanes but it would seem those would be steady all the way,
and maybe blink on and off throughout the photo.

On a different note, Mike Haney has a VERY nice house. There might be some
poking fun at him in an S.T. costume, but he is obviously a very
successful young man. He had some really cool Star Wars collectibles in a case that
many of us would love to have to hold our meteorites. I would guess he
has a nicer house than probably 99.9% of the people on this list. Not that
financial success may mean a whole lot in this case. I am just saying this
because I don't want people to think of him as a "goofy kid." I was very
impressed with him, and he seemed like a very sharp, intelligent and
successful man.

Just some of my observations from the field.

Steve Arnold
of Meteorite Men

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Received on Sun 12 Jul 2009 01:07:32 PM PDT