[meteorite-list] Lyrid meteors?

From: Galactic Stone and Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:49:33 -0400
Message-ID: <CAKBPJW9fG2skbY-c9SHWKN5ngg=q8t=_cWs1_t_HQnNbS62AzQ_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Linton,

Nice report. It makes me want to go out with the scope rig more
often. I don't get to observe very often now, but several years ago I
had a great run of seeing bolides. But this was before I was
introduced to meteorites, so I didn't make the realization that those
same bolides could be dropping stones. Since learning about
meteorites, I'd see a bolide and then imagine where it will fall and
what it's history was before it landed here.

I haven't seen any good ones in a long time. If I go out with the
purpose of observing a bolide, I never spot any. But I had a great
run a few years back. This was around summer of 2008, and I saw more
bolides in a span of ~3 months than I usually see in the average year
or two. I'd make notes, but never really documented any useful
information about them. Any future meaningful bolide observations I
make will be posted here also, in the hopes that maybe someone can
find some meteorites.

Best regards and clear dark skies,

MikeG

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On 4/23/12, Linton Rohr <lintonius at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 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 04:49:33 PM PDT