[meteorite-list] Yet another video of Pennsylvania 6JUL09 Fireball? YES!

From: Mike Hankey <mike.hankey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:28:35 -0400
Message-ID: <f0a794130907310528p36bc40cfn8b80071334211d6f_at_mail.gmail.com>

Dirk,

Thanks for sending this out. If this is legit this is great news! I
found another video last saturday from the safe harbor dam, but this
is yet another one.

If this is authentic that makes 3 videos: York Water Company, Safe
Harbor Power Corp and this Pittsburgh one, plus the original picture I
took. That should be enough to get a good read on this thing right?

I emailed my video out to the list earlier this week.

I've been working on a refined trajectory & field map since Tuesday,
but still have some more work to do on it before I publish it. I hope
to have it on the site tonight, as I will be in the field both days
this weekend.

I was working with a very nice map that was given to me from a
reputable source, but this source told me after reviewing the new safe
harbor video that his initial terminus point was off by 20km based on
his analysis of the safe harbor video. I would imagine this new video
should refine that point even more.

I'm going to have to study this video a lot more. I'm very curious at
this point.

Jupiter would have been at 24 degrees ALT 131 degrees AZ on this
date/time (from freeland). The fireball in this video comes in about
1/2 the distance between Jupiter and the horizon. (15 degrees?). The
Andromeda galaxy was at 55 ALT and 27 AZ. So that is a question for
me. I suppose it's possible? I don't want to make any conclusions
without studying further and talking to some experts.

Slightly NE of Pittsburgh does line up with york and safe harbor, but
everything I've have heard up to this point puts this on a SW / NE
direction. With this new video it would seem the path is NW / SE. That
also conflicts with some ground reports I've gotten. I talked to some
Amish that were very close to the crash when it happened. So close
they felt they had to duck. That position was NE of quarryville.

I also got this tip from one of my friends/ blog readers:

FYI: In the Aegis (our local Hartford County paper), yesterday?
Someone found a piece of the Meteor in Whiteford MD. Wouldn?t give
specific location but Whiteford, is about 2 miles from Travis and I.
He said he found it in a wooded area which significantly limits his
search possibilities. He didn?t say whether it was private land or
public. (not much public land there). Have the article if you?re
interested.

If its true I suppose that would support a NW/SE direction.

This is the first time I've ever tried to map out a meteor path so I
don't really know sh_at_!, but I try really hard.

Rob you said this video looks consistent with the other sources? Does
your analysis include my picture and the safe harbor video?

I'd love to hear other thoughts / comments from more people on this.

Thanks,

Mike

On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 4:17 AM, Rob Matson<mojave_meteorites at cox.net> wrote:
> Hi Dirk,
>
> This is indeed the Pennsylvania bolide! This is definitely going to help
> improve the impact point prediction as the quality of the video is
> superb compared to the York Water video.
>
> I wish I had seen this video a few hours ago so that I could start
> recomputing the 3D flight vector. Alas I'm exhausted and need to call
> it a night. But I'll get to work on it tomorrow.
>
> The reason I know this is the same Pennsylvania bolide is that the
> trajectory is very close to agreeing with what my existing 3D solution
> looks like when you view it from Pittsburgh. Right down to the location
> of Jupiter (the bright object on the right side of the image). And if
> I'm not mistaken, epsilon Pegasi is also just barely visible in the
> video. ?(Epsilon Pegasi is not particularly bright in the visible,
> but since it's a K2 orange supergiant, it shows up well in CCD images
> which are much more red sensitive than human eyes.) ?I'd really like
> to have the source video at full resolution so that I could do a
> detailed astrometric solution for the bolide position with time.
> Perhaps a second star will even be visible in a full resolution
> video.
>
> Thanks to Jupiter and the star, we know exactly which way the
> camera was pointed, and the image scale. The question is whether
> someone can find out the camera location to reasonable accuracy.
>
> --Rob
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com]On Behalf Of
> drtanuki
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 12:20 AM
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com; Global Meteor Observing Forum
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Yet another video of Pennsylvania 6JUL09
> Fireball?
>
>
>
> Dear List,
> ?Today I found that someone has posted a video on YouTube reportedly taken
> in Pennsylvania on the night of July 5, maybe of the early morning fireball
> of 6JUL09? ?Perhaps this video is authentic?
>
> ?I don`t have Mike Hankey`s email address to forward it to him so I would
> appreciate it if someone would send him a copy. ?Mike is this your
> handywork?
>
> More information and video:
> http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/2009/07/pennsylvania-meteormeteori
> te-news-new.html
>
> Best Regards, Dirk Ross...Tokyo
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Received on Fri 31 Jul 2009 08:28:35 AM PDT