Drive you mad!

The way I always looked at at is that exceptionaly bright meteors were called fallballs. If the defining mag is an absolute at -4, then thats fair enough.
Calling them "bright" meteors or meteorites (if they reach the gound) is also correct..

Conor,

As we both know, very bright meteors are rare events. As they move very fast, it can be difficult sometimes to estimate their brightness. This is especially true of fireballs. Fireballs can be as bright as the Moon (and even brighter). However, when this happens, they get so bright that the light apears to occupy an area in the sky i.e. they could also appear as large as a full moon. Estimating a magnitude is very difficult for objects which appear to take up a size or an area in the sky as an object's magnitude relates to the aparent brightness of an object if it were a pinpoint of light. Comets are a classic example of this. You may or may not know the various techniques involved in estimating magnitude of comets. If not, drop me a pm and I'll try my best to try and explain it.

Anywy, most of the above I'm sure you know already so you might ask what my point is. Well, as it's very difficult to estimate the magnitude of very fast moving objects and even harder to estimate the magnitude of "large" objects (such as fireballs, the moon, comets etc) the term "fireball" offers a convenient and non-technical way of outlining to someone how bright the meteor was.
Besides, it's not for me to argue with the dictionary.
dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fireball

Seriously though, does all this make sense now??

This is a game of words and confusing for some but we are not confused. That object on the footage is classified as a fireball because it is brighter than mag -4.5, this is pretty basic stuff and there is a VERY distinct difference between meteors and fireballs. This was the point of the discussion. NO amateur astronomer on this board who seen an object at mag - 27 say would say they just seen a bright meteor. It is a fireball plain and simple which is the point i am trying to get across.

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It's a bit like saying "I saw a car" and saying "I saw a Renault Megane".

I don't like those cars Mike... :lol:

Tut..tut...tut...
Envy will get you nowhere Seanie!

Michael thanks for the reply. I dont mean to be cheeky in anyway but i do know how hard it can be sometimes to estimate the brightness of fireballs and so on. Eg through clouds and so forth. Yea i do know how to estimate the brightness of a come using Sidwick method. About puting stars out of focus in your FOV. Michael during my many many meteor shower watches i can aswell as anyone else estimate the brightness of a meteor/fireball according to Venus or so fainter pintpoints in the sky. But my point was that i dont agree with calling it a meteor as it was a def fireball. I think anything over -4 should not be classed as a meteor but a fireball.

This is a game of words and confusing for some but we are not confused. That object on the footage is classified as a fireball because it is brighter than mag -4.5, this is pretty basic stuff and there is a VERY distinct difference between meteors and fireballs. This was the point of the discussion. NO amateur astronomer on this board who seen an object at mag - 27 say would say they just seen a bright meteor. It is a fireball plain and simple which is the point i am trying to get across.

Martin & Conor,
I've nothing to gain from disagreeing with either of you. You're both excellent observers and are very dedicated to the hobby. I wish everyone had your level of enthusasim and interest in the hobby. We could do with more people like yourself here on these boards. All I'm doing is simply trying to help. If you don't believe me, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. If you don't believe myself, Dave Lillis and the dictionary, I doubt anything else I say will convince you, nor will I try any further. If you like, you could create a poll and ask people here to vote on the matter. Hopefully, that may assist you both.
Anyway, it's clear outside so I'm going out observing for the evening.
Talk later,