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Congratulations Thomas!
This
discovery is a very big deal indeed, since it represents one of the
very
few
times that a bright bolide has been observed by many people,
recorded
by
multiple cameras, and from which at least one meteorite was
eventually
recovered. (The first find is the hard one --
others will now surely be
discovered.) And if it turns out to be an H5
(read on!), you may have a
very
important find on your hands! I've driven all over this part of
Bavaria,
visiting beautiful Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the
Zugspitze, Fussen and of
course
the world-famous Neuschwanstein Castle built by "crazy
Ludwig".
This
is an extraordinarily difficult region to search for meteorites --
rugged
mountains, and dense forests -- so I cannot
overemphasize the kudos
deserved for making a recovery
there.
For the benefit of those who may have
forgotten the details of this brilliant
fall
from earlier this year, here's an excerpt from Dieter Heinlein's post
of
April
10th:
"A fireball of estimated magnitude -20
mag was observed by hundreds of people
over southern Bavaria on April
6, 2002 at 20:20:18 UT, and spectacular sound
effects were reported by many
witnesses. The trajectory of this
bolide was
registered by several camera
stations of the European Network of
Fireball
Photography. At least
five camera stations located in Germany, one in Austria
and one in the Czech
Republic [caught] this event. Right now these
images
are reduced at the Ondrejov
Observatory (Czech Republic)
in order to obtain
precise data for the
atmospheric trajectory. A meteorite fall is probable, but
NO real meteorites have
been found so far."
- - - -
Pavel Spurny of the Czech Republic provided some even
more exciting
and detailed information
about this bolide about a week
later. Pay particular
attention to the analysis of the heliocentric orbit
determined:
"A very bright fireball illuminated large territory of Western
Austria
and Southern Bavaria on Saturday evening, April 6 at 22:20:18 local time (UT+2h). The fireball was observed by many casual witnesses over the territory of almost whole Central Europe, but most observations were reported from Bavaria and Western Austria. Except of numerous visual observations, the fireball was recorded by several kinds of scientific instruments. The most important records were obtained by the systematic long-term observational photographic program - the European Fireball Network (EN). The records were taken at 5 German, one Czech and one Austrian station of the EN. Each of these stations is equipped with one all-sky camera, which is open whole night and whole sky is photographed on one image. The German and Austrian stations are equipped with mirror all-sky cameras and are operated by the German Aerospace Center DLR, Berlin. The Czech stations of the EN are equipped with very precise Zeiss Distagon fish-eye objectives and are operated by the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Ondrejov. Most Czech stations had cloudy skies on April 6, however. The photographic records are most important for exact determination of the fireball atmospheric trajectory, including prediction of meteorite impact area and derivation of heliocentric orbit. In addition to these photographic data, the fireball was recorded by three radiometric systems placed in the Czech Republic at Ondrejov Observatory and Kunzak station, which gives us basic information about light curve and maximum brightness of the fireball and about exact time of the event. Furthermore the fireball was recorded by at least at two infrasound stations, one located at Freyung, Germany (see http://www.seismologie.bgr.de) and second at Deelen, The Netherlands (see http://www.knmi.nl/~evers/infrasound/events/020406/bavaria-bolide.html) and also at several seismic stations from Austria, Southern Germany and Switzerland. "All data presented below are based only on above-mentioned photographic and radiometric data recorded within the EN observing program and are very close to final values. All records were measured, reduced and all computations were performed at the Ondrejov Observatory, the headquarters of the European Fireball Network." --CONTINUED in PART
2--
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