[meteorite-list] Southern Utah fireball
From: Linton Rohr <lintonius_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:57:31 -0700 Message-ID: <0B13BC15C43548CC9A5EAEBA06503D69_at_D190TH71> Hello everyone. I just wanted to share an exciting pre-dawn sighting from a few days ago. I awoke early Saturday morning at our new home in southern Utah, to say goodbye to my visiting brother. I stepped out onto the balcony and looked up to see the Milky Way arching high overhead. The rosy glow of dawn was creeping up over the red rock cliffs to the east and I spotted Jupiter a few degrees above the horizon, with the Pleiades just above that. Not a bad way to start the day. But then, just as my wife came out to look... I turned to the north just in time to catch a brilliant fireball. It was traveling roughly SW to NE, making a line from about Vega or northern Hercules to the handle of the Big Dipper. It spanned about 20 degrees of sky and was very bright white - several times brighter than Venus - leaving a brief ion trail behind before turning orange and beginning to fragment. It either burned up completely at that point, or broke apart as it continued in dark flight. If anything reached the ground, I'd estimate it to be in the San Rafael Swell area. While oohing and ahhing over all that, I turned back to the east just a moment later just as Venus began to rise over the cliffs of Capitol Reef. It was orange, like a rising full moon, and grew larger as it continued coming into view. I watched it detach from the cliff and begin to rise, first in arc-minutes and then degrees, brightening all the while. I finally went inside to make sure my brother was up and tell him what I'd just seen. What an amazing morning. I'll remember it always. Linton Received on Tue 26 Jun 2012 06:57:31 PM PDT |
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