[meteorite-list] Lyrid meteors?

From: Linton Rohr <lintonius_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:33:51 -0700
Message-ID: <4615D488234543188F52DA61B14290F3_at_D190TH71>

Wondering if anyone else saw any Lyrid meteors over the weekend.
I was out at a dark-sky star party Friday night, about 90 miles north of
L.A., and saw an amazingly long-lasting meteor around 9:30pm slowly streak
across the northern sky, from east to west. It traveled parallel to the
horizon, between the Big and Little Dippers, emanating from around Bootes
and finally terminating in Auriga. Almost as bright as Venus, it must have
lasted 6-8 seconds and covered 100-120 degrees of sky. It began to produce a
long, green ion trail after about 1 second of incandescence. Truly
incredible. I was surprised no one else in my group saw it. Perhaps if I had
yelled out "meteor!... north!", instead of just "wow... wow... wow...". ;^)
Around 2:00am there was another impressive one, though definitely not a
Lyrid. It was at least as bright as Venus, but only lasted a second or two.
It was falling from Corvis, and fragmented into multiple pieces which fell
away still glowing. Nice.
Sky conditions were very good - seeing, as well as transparency. I suspect
Saturday night was even better, since we had a layer of fog over the city.
Linton
Received on Mon 23 Apr 2012 04:33:51 PM PDT