Meteorite Fall on Wednesday night ???

Thank god im not alone !

I thought I was seeing things, I went out to take a look at the skies - extremely cloudy. Then I spotted this bright blue "thing" streaking through the sky, pretty low it was too. I have seen shooting stars before, but this was amazing.

Scared the hell out of me. The clouds didnt help, making it looks like it was "flashing" blue. Such a terrific blue color, I was gobsmacked.

Im no astronomer so my coordinates are Mitchelstown, North Cork Time was roughly 11:30, give or take 5-10 mins.

Hi Ronan from the Galway Astronomy Club, ok what can i say, what an amazing fireball and for once i actually seen one although this was a once in a lifetime event, never mind Mars this was unreal, my self and two others from the club were set up at Silver Strand Beach,Barna with several members of the public who just came by for a look at Mars, from here we have a clear view out to sea and over to the Burren Hills,Co.Clare.
I just happened to be Facing South when what i thought was an iridium flare suddenly intensified, it was brilliant white and the whole southern sky turned a bright green-blue, beautiful trail of orange debris, id say alot brighter than a full Moon , at least mag. -15 to -18 maybe more, it started just to the North East of Altair and continued in a 4 oclock position into Saggitarius and faded from viewe , the time was exactly 2323 my watch. lasted about 3-4 seconds, no sonic boom, i presume its in the Sea as it was heading out Towards Blackhead direction , was was really beautiful was the colour and the reflection of it on the sea.

Well it didnt land in my back garden, although you could miss it from all the debris left over from my recient wall building.
I was out that night trying to look for Mars but I was semi-clouded out, I took a break for tea between 11.10 and 11.45, so i missed it.

I've seen some great fireballs over the last 10-15 years (best for me was ~mag-7 through the plough on august 18, 1991) but nothing approaches what has been described here.

I was in my sitting room without curtains blocking the patio doors, but I didnt notice any flashes outside....
Didnt see Mars, nor this fireball, Major Bummer... :x :x :x

Just an update on what I experienced

I pulled out the compass when I got home tonight to try and check the direction it was travelling. I make out it was headed in a North West direction. Hope that helps some bit.

hi everyone,

many thanks for all the reports being posted to this and the other IFAS forum.

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"goneshootin" wrote that the fireball was seen travelling in a northwest direction. This is one of the most critical observations to date. I don't know your name from the user "handle" but that's a fantastic piece of data as it allows us narrow down the corridor where the object was seen and enable a better estimation of whether something hit the ground. I'd appreciate if the form mentioned below could be completed and returned to me as soon as possible. Many thanks again.

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I was on Clare FM radio last night with David Moore talking to a presenter about the fireball and other aspects of meteorites. Both David and I are collating reports and we are fairly confident that some sort of stone was dropped somewhere in west Clare or, alas, into the sea or Shannon Estuary.

we have asked people to log any reports and send them to us while someone else on the ground is going to investigate for me down around the Kilkee area.

if it's no trouble, could I ask anyone who has posted reports to the group to date to fill out a report form and post it to me? The following website has a template that can be printed (5 pages) or saved as a html file.

www.amsmeteors.org/fireball/report.html

my address is;

5 Greenmount Lawns,
Terenure,
Dublin 6

the form can also be e-mailed to;

john dot flannery at jefferson dot ie (substitute "dot" with ".", etc.)

[albertw: removed johns phone numbers, please message him for details]

many thanks for all your help on this and I will keep everyone up to date on success or not in any search for the object.

John

Glad to hear I was of some use I come across this forum from www.boards.ie when I was trying to find out what it was I had seen in the first place.

Ill never forget it....



Mick