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Remarks |
I\'ts a very dark night (sighting at 1:43 AM Eastern) with the moon just above the tree line to the E/SE. Sighting began almost due North or possibly just a fraction to the N/NW. It travelled from an estimated 30 degrees above horizon at onset moving at approx a 120-130 degree angle to the horizon. It didn\'t appear to be a smoke trail, but rather a phosphorescent like glow / ion tail type trail that persisted about a second behind the advancing fireball and quickly fading to invisible after that as it went below horizon. The fireball, main and the several pieces that went from brilliant white at the moment of the brightest flash about a second after the fireball initially appeared, went from brilliant florescent BRIGHT white then bluish white with oranges mixing in. At the flash which wasn\'t one instant event but an intense initial flash followed by several flashes of lesser intensity giving the overall appearance of a flickering light that immediately produced several independent pieces that produced their own momentary trail and steadily reduced in magnitude of brightness from the breakup until I lost sight below horizon. Brilliant white overall that lost luminosity and passed through bluish white, oranges and reds in tail but with the coma remaining white the duration; possibly lessening whitish blue at the end. After each flash, the brightness shot up the scale again and then began to lessen intensity and go through the spectrum. The flash / breakup occured around the 2.5-3 second mark followed by flickering through approx 4-4.75 seconds. Approx 6 second overall best estimation. The fireball lit up a good portion of the sky around it that increased to lighting up at least (in my estimation) half of the sky at the flash / breakup. As it moved below the top of the treeline, the forest was well illuminated and I could see perfect detail of individual trees / branches as it continued diving to the horizon. The night was utterly silent and immediately after the fireball, I heard dogs begin to bark all around the countryside and, eerily, nearby cattle began to moo in what I\'ve come to know by living in the country seemed to be an alert vocalization. Not long moo\'s, but short repeating high pitched (for a cow) sounds. Sorry for the cheesy description; I want you to understand that this thing was big and bright enough to upset the cows. Absolutely amazing, once in a lifetime. I hope my description makes sense.. |
