2 v. bright meteors

Hi,
I'm new to the board and just wanted to share a couple of (very amateur)meteor sightings from yesterday evening.
Location was Celbridge Co Kildare, the first sighting was at about 1830, a very bright (_much_ brighter than Venus), white meteor, leaving a trail of about 10 degrees, lasting over 10 seconds. The overall appearance was what I can only describe as "fizzing". It headed from north to south parallel to the eastern horizon at about 40 degrees elevation. The head and tail seemed to have a width of about 1/6 to 1/4 the diameter of the moon. The whole thing had a surreal effect, which I only figured out afterwards was due to the total silence - I'd have expected something this big and bright to make noise.
The second sighting was about 1850, again very bright, with a definite green colour. Tail about 5 degrees. Elevation about 20 degrees, heading east to west parallel to the northern horizon. This one was even brighter than the first, but seemed for some reason not to appear as large.

Firstly, welcome aboard!

Secondly, it sounds like you wer one of the few people who actually managed to see some nice Geminids this year! The Geminids have their maximun around the 13th of December and are known to produce quite a few fireballs (like the 2 you describe). I have caught a few of tem over the years but nothing this year

Bart.

There were some gaps in the cloud last night so I got to see about 15 gemenids. That was more than I expected given the partial cloud cover and light pollution so I guess they were fairly bringht. No fireballs though.