Very bright meteor 11.35, 16Aug, did anyone else see it ??

Hi all,
While out observing last night, Roy and I observed an amazing meteor (possibly meteorite) last night.
It was amazing, it had a hugh persistant trail behind, wasnt traveling that fast either, the instant I saw it through the corner of my eye I thought it was a plane, it was going very slow for a meteor, it lasted easily 3 or 4 seconds and also had a very striking orange colour , almost like the amber you'd see in the traffic light. It wasnt white with an orange hue, its colour was like Mars at a close opposition, just not as red.

It started to the right of the plough, flew through lynx, then above capella by about 3 degrees and dissapeard by the auriga-perseus border.
If ever I saw something that might have reached the ground, this is the one as it appeared to glisten and fragment towards the end. It was easily mag -4.

I've seen many bright and brighter meteors but never anything like this,
I wonder does its colour and slow speed signify that it's some manmade debris re-entering the atmosphere ?
Did anyone else see it ?!?

BTW, thats a nice scope there Roy, easily collimatable aswell.

Ya it was F'n awesome..
I reckin this 1 hit ground..
So anyone around the Nenagh or Offaly
Area get out ur metal detectors and go hunting..

Cheers Roy

I had a look at the meteor camera data from last night, but nothing fits that description unfortunately.

I did capture 15 meteors though (mag range from +0.4 to +2.3):
5 x Perseids
2 x Capricornods
8 x sporadics

Hey Dave, it could have been a bit of space debris. I have seen debris burn up before. Definitely if it is wayyyy too slow to be a meteor like you describe.

Seanie.

Hi Seanie,I'm leaning that way aswell.

Michael, thats a real pity it wasnt seen by your camera, was it cloudy towards the north, NE or NW on your camera at the time or was it just not there ?
It definitely passed a few degrees above capella, paralleling the horison, heading south, I would have thought it would have been seen from your location aswell.

Is this not what is called a bollide? I saw something similar when I took one final look over my shoulder while I was carrying the last of my gear back into the house after the 100hours of Astronomy event in Glendalough back in '09. Talk about timing. Still the most amazing thing I have yet seen in the sky. Slow, with a white tail that extended 20-30º back from the head. A magnitude intensity somewhere between Venus and the Moon and then the head exploded into 4 or 5 parts which then had their own little persistent tails for the remaining few seconds before extinction.

Not unlike the following video except I saw it as instense bluey white light instead of green/cyan