Did anyone else see the Bolide Fireball at 12.35am !!

Funny thing, I'm on air now (check my signature) and someone who must know I'm in the local astronomy club here asked me did I see what caused a loud bang in the sky in the small hours of Saturday night/Sunday morning, asking if it was a meteorite (or Optimus Prime!). They didn't give a name (it was by studio text) or a location...

Seanie.

Hi Keith,

I missed this one - and so did my all-sky camera that was off-line at the time! D'oh!!

Terry Mosely emailed the following:

From: TerryMosel@aol.com [mailto:TerryMosel@aol.com]
Sent: 08 April 2009 00:58
To: iaa2000@btinternet.com
Subject: Fireball, Aliens at BCO, Memorial Service, Lectures, AGM, Lidl Binocs

Hi all,

NB: If anyone wants removed from this email list, reply with "REMOVE MY ADDRESS" in subject line

1. Brilliant Fireball: A very bright fireball was seen widely over Ireland, and even as far away as Liverpool, at about 00.30 on Sunday morning, 4 April. John McConnell saw it from Maghaberry, Co Antrim, and a woman saw it from her home in Newry, Co Down. The Liverpool observer reports that the fireball appeared at 30 - 40 degrees altitude in the western sky at 00:33 UT on 2009 April 05.
And here's part of John's McConnell's report:
"(I saw it) early Sunday morning at 00:32 BST. I was talking to a friend on the phone and had just sat down to finish a cup of coffee when I saw what appeared to be the lights of an aircraft. Aircraft with lights on are common being so close to Belfast International Airport when they are making their final approach. This idea faded somewhat when the object dropped with a steep angle almost due south and burned out behind the neighbouring houses. Some smaller bits were seen to break off on the way down. It appeared to come from the eastern side of Leo but I didn't actually see its full path. It did not appear to have any tail but was vivid green in colour and about half the size of the gibbous moon, so it was very bright. From my vantage point it appeared to drop out over the Mournes, but took about five seconds to come down.
If you saw it, please send in as many details as possible; i.e. time, brightness relative to the Moon, speed of motion, duration, direction it was moving, direction you were facing, direction when first seen and last seen, approximate altitude when first seen and last seen, and particularly if you can relate the path to any bright stars. Also, were you indoors or out, did you hear anything, did you see any bits drop off it, did you see a tail or trail behind it? etc. And we also need your location at the time, as accurately as possible
Lots of reports have been received, but we need many more in order to calculate the exact path and work out where any meteorite may have landed.
Even if you can't give all those details, tell us anything you can remember - every little helps.

Phil.

Philip, I just sent this to Terry. Might as well post it here too as my final estimations of the track.

On the night in question, I had just arrived home to Bray after attending the IAS/SDAS Public Outreach 100hours event in Glendalough Co. Wicklow with my Telescope. I had just moved all my gear from the car to outside my front door and was just turning my key in the door lock about 12.32am. By a massive stroke of good fortune, I turned one last time to look up at the sky before starting to carry the gear inside.

With that, I saw what at first I thought was the brightest Iridium flare I had ever seen. At the time I didn't even have time to think to myself the location would be way way too low and in the earths shadow for it to be an Iridium. A split second later after the 'flare' had brightened to full intensity, all thoughts of Iridiums were banished because this thing was leaving a very bright fiery sparky tail!! The entire event took about 5 seconds. About 3.5 seconds in, the fireball broke apart into 3 or 4 pieces each themselves trailing a fiery sparky tail before all faded out.

I was standing outside facing just east of due south and the track was from west to east at a shallow angle. From my perspective I could not really judge if it had a northerly or southerly element to its west to east vector. The object like I said flared up almost like an Iridium flare. Way way more intense than Venus. I would estimate that at its peak flare intensity it looked nearly the size of the full moon but with a much more intense light than the full moon. By light intensity I mean it was like the Lunar Venus occultation back in December where one thought the moon was an intense white light in the eyepiece but only until Venus popped into view from behind the moon and suddenly the diamond like intense white light of Venus made the lunar surface look cream in comparison. I did not see any hint of green. This was intense white light. As far as I know I have normal colour vision but I never see colour in celestial objects. Whether other people seeing green and me not is a function of our eyesight or a function of diffraction of the light of the object when seen at different angles I don't know. I did not hear anything but any sound it made may have been masked by me almost shouting..."OH WOW!!" hehe!

As for start and end points. Well I have 2 streetlights within a few yards of my position and another 4 or 5 in my line of sight to where the object tracked. This meant that at the time of the event where I was in no way dark adapted, the only stars I could quickly note in my maked eye FOV were Denebola in Leo and Arcturus. So these were 2 of the 'signposts' that I judged the track relative to, for my initial internet postings on the subject, ie starting about 20º high under Denebola and ending about 15º high under Arcturus. After checking Starry Night Pro that night I refined my track estimations to the track starting near the Sombrero Galaxy, passing just below Spica and ending on the borders of Libra...under Arcturus. Of course that means nothing unless one knows the locations of these objects at the time of the event itself.

However last night I decided to further refine my track estimations due to last nights 12.30am locations of Spica and the moon which were at this time much closer to the track vectors. The reason being that I had a much better idea of the track vector in relation to a house roof in my FOV and of Bray Head in my FOV to the SSE as opposed to the much more vague track vector relationship to Denebola and Arcturus which were so much higher and further away from the track that night. ie. Last nights Moon and Spica positions at 12:30am were much closer to my more solid memory of the track in relation to the house roof and bray head.

So what I did was booted up Starry Night Pro again and made sure that all time and location settings were correct. I went outside with a cup of hot tea and sat in the shadows for 15 minutes or so to get a bit more dark adapted. I then moved to the position outside my front door where I saw the event from, all the while shielding my eyes from the nearby street lights. I then visualised the track vector in relation to the house roof and Bray head and the moon and Spica and noted the stars in those areas that I could now see with last nights more dark adapted and lightshielded eyes.

I then ran back inside to Starry Night Pro on the computer and noted the candidate stars and paused the Sidereal clock.

The stars in the approximate location of the beginning of the track and at the end of the track were:

61 Virginus in Virgo and Zubenelgenubi in Libra. With SNP paused within 60 seconds of the sightings I noted the ALT AZ co-ordinates of these to stars which are my final approximations of the start and end points of the track.

Thus the start point was approx. - AZ 162º ALT 16º
and the end point was approx. - AZ 139º ALT 12º

My LAT/LONG from my Doorstep in Bray taken from Google Earth - 53º12'10"N 6º06'04"W

So as you can see, my new results were broadly similar to my initial track estimations but I am much more confident about my new estimations.

I hope these are of some help. I think its fair to say though with my location about 100 yards from the sea and this event appearing over Bray head that in all likelyhood this meteroite is at the bottom of the Irish Sea somewhere. I don't even think it made it to Wales