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Remarks |
I was at the Needles Overlook photographing early sunrise over the Needles and Abajo Mtns to the south. At this particular moment my camera was set to 5 sec exposures, I pressed the shutter and looked up a second or so later. Looking up I saw a bright green line almost directly in front of me that at first glance looked like an oversized green laser beam going down and to the right. In a split second, after it had gone down below me (at rim level) I saw the flash at the bottom end of the green line as it burned up and disappeared. It appeared to be maybe 50 yards away off the rim, but I realize distances are deceiving in that landscape. It was a rather thick streak, much wider that what you normally see going across the sky. There was not a sound, and I am very clear in my recollection on that as it was a still quiet dawn and it struck me as odd that there wasn't a sound from it. As I saw the the meteor streak and flash right before me, my first thought was damn I wish I'd caught that in the photo and it'll never happen again - my sense was that the camera had clicked closed already when it happened. Then it occurred to me to look anyway and sure enough I did capture the first part of the meteor streak above the horizon! Bright green just like I saw it - pretty cool! Just wish I'd caught the flash as well. So having explained the story, I should note that the end flash happened below the horizon, so the trajectory calcs may be off since your direction finder doesn't allow negative view elevations. As I recall it would have been about -15° to -20° from my view point at the canyon rim, but still approx 196° from North as I indicated for the ending view direction. I'll post the photo when the report gets added to the list. Naturally very interested to hear if anyone else reported it. |
