Meteorite Fall on Wednesday night ???

hi everyone,

maybe some of you may have heard more about this.

John Nooney's observatory outside Mullingar hosted an open night on
Wednesday night for the public to come view Mars.

some of us travelled down from Dublin to help on the night and while
there, Val Dunne, one of our group, got a call from his niece in
Ennis who had witnessed a very bright fireball that trailed down to
the near distance and then she saw a very bright flash of light like
an explosion.

Val's niece is an amateur astronomer herself so her report is
genuine. I rang Ennis garda station to determine if any other reports
came in and while doing so Val's niece rang him back to say that
Clare FM was being flooded by calls from members of the public.

about 5 to 10 minutes before we got that report, quite a number of
people in John Nooney's witnessed a very bright meteor trailing
across the sky in a south-westerly direction and it disappeared over
the horizon.

if anyone has any reports or can help verify what was seen then I,
along with the rest of us on the group, would be very interested in
seeing if it was a genuine meteorite fall and how we can go about
recovering it.

feel free to post to the group or mail me directly on skynotes at
eircom dot net

John Flannery

South Dublin Astro. Soc.

Hi John,
I saw a bright fireball which appeared to start from roughly the centre of Hercules. I reckon it was definetly a Persied as the trail appeared to point back to Perseus. It was so bright that at first I thought a car was pulling into the driveway. I reckon that it was at least as bright as a full moon although it's difficult to estimate magnitude with such a sudden event. The "keystone" of Hercules was just visible above the trees from where I had set up my scope in the driveway and the light appeared to start from this region of the sky. I was trying to read a star chart in my little "Stars and Planets" book when all of a sudden the whole sky light up and the book became easily readable from the light. I also remember noticing strong distinct shadows on the driveway from the light shining through the trees. By the time I looked up it was just below the "keystone" and projecting a path back along it's track I reckon it would have passed very close to the centre of it and was definetly travelling in a southwesterly direction. Anyway, I dropped my book and ran like mad to try and get to the other side of the trees to see if the trail persisted. Unfortunately, by the time I got there and with the interference of a street light I didn't see any persisting trail. After a few seconds from when the meteor disappeared I heard a very faint rumble that lasted about 1-2 seconds. Sounded like a very distant plane but the sound lasted too short for it to be caused by such I reckon. Unfortunately, I did not witness any explosion but this could be due to the interference of the trees. My approx co-ords are 52.638N 7.606W. Could the sound have been caused from an explosion on from it breaking the sound barrier??
Michael
BTW, although I didn't have a watch on me at the time (guess who's kicking themselves now :x ) I reckon it was approx 11.15pm.
With direction of meteor, location of observer, position of object in the sky and time from one other source it should be possible to develop a 3D trajectory for it, yea?

this is great stuff Michael. Your report is definitely of use to me ... I'm kicking myself too for being indoors talking to someone when everyone else saw the object!!!

Mandy, Val's niece, contacted Clare FM this morning but it was too late in the morning show to get her to go on air. She may be on tomorrow's programme though.

I'm sending her down a simple report form with a list of info we need to identify the object, the trajectoy, and a possible impact area. Clare FM will read it on air and get reports back to us.

any help anyone on the newsgroup can offer will be much appreciated as this is a new "venture" for us as meteorite hunters!

the time correlation in your report is pretty good. I checked my mobile and I rang Ennis Garda station at 23:39 BST. Mandy saw the object about 15 minutes prior to that so there is pretty close agreement when the exact time is not noted.

I would certainly agree with you that the brief sounds you heard were the sonic boom as the object passed over.

it's looking very likely from reports so far that a fall has occurred and once we get as many reports as possible in we should definitely head down that direction and instigate some sort of search.

thanks again for the reply Michael and I'll keep everyone up to date on the saga ...

John

john, et all, what ARE the real chances of finding such an object? Unless someone outdoors actually saw or heard the object closer to its probable impact site, we're talking looking for a couple of black golf balls over hundreds of acres right?

Now, I am talking in ignorance here, as I don't know the exact math (maybe someone enlighten me??) in tracing such an object, but I would be up for such a quest, knowing that something may not be found exceeding the possibility of it turning up! The publicity would be great, and it could be made out as a fun event with maps given out, areas designated to people to search etc etc...

Personally, I'm up for it!

Seanie.

It would still produce a crater a few meters across so it could be found. Without lots more data it would be hard to narrow it down to any particular area. security cameras could be of help. At the moments were looking for a less than 10m diameter crater somewhere in the south west or the atlantic! Unfortunately thats one of the more sparsley populated areas of the country.

If was narrowed down a bit I'd take a weekend hiking to go look!

The first thing to do would surely be to get someone who actually say the thing, make them stand where they saw it and note down the exact direction and path.

Cheers,
~Al

p.s. I've posted your original mail on a couple of boards.
p.p.s. :

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Original Message

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Subject: [Astronomy Ireland]Mars, FIREBALL!
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:06:47 +0100
From: Astronomy Ireland <info@astronomy.ie>
To: Astronomy Ireland List <astronomy@lists.redbrick.dcu.ie>

<snip>

2. FIREBALL

We are being inundated with calls about the brilliant fireball (very
bright meteor or "shooting star) seen around 11:30pm from all over
Ireland, especially the southwest. We saw it in Dublin from the Phoenix
Park and so did loads of other people around the country. I've already
done several radio interviews about it this morning.

If you saw it please go to our website below and fill in the report form
(click on "report a fireball" in the left had menu sidebar) NOW while
your memory is fresh and tell absolutely everyone else who you know saw
it to do the same, TODAY preferably!

Next week we will analyse all the reports and publish a notice on the
Fireball Report Form page about if any meteorite may have fallen as a
result, and where.

<snip snip snip snip snip>

Yeah I saw it too. I was looking through my scope towards Scutum when something bright made me look up. I was atop the Slieve Bloom mountains when I saw this bright green streak flash across the sky. This thing even cast shadows! I saw it break up and the parts burn up as they trailed off. There was some kind of noise, but the whole thing was over so fast that I didn't pay much heed. I was just too overwhelmed by the brightness. It flew from under the keystone into Bootes, looked really low in the sky and disappeared to the west of Tullamore. I'd rule out looking anywhere to the east or south of Tullamore.
Co-ordinates at the site were 53 degrees 05 minutes North 7 degrees 34 minutes West. The time was approximately 22.25 UT (23.25 BST). Meteor was brighter that the full moon, left a 25 degree long streak and showed itself to be disintegrating into fragments which burned with an orange colour. Meteor itself was definitely green, had a 'head' making it look like a firework.
What a sight!