Just this... Alastair McBeath, Director of the SPA's Meteor Section, has provided the following update (26th December 2009):
Sightings of the spectacular daylight fireball on December 19 have been received from places in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire so far, though as many witnesses were on the road at the time, few people managed to give sufficient information to allow a reasonable trajectory for the event to be estimated. The fireball was probably high above the North Sea off eastern England and perhaps partly over northeastern East Anglia too. Of those observers who were able to suggest a sky-path for the meteor, two described it as possibly angled somewhere between south-north to southeast-northwest, but four others indicated it more likely lay between north-south to northwest-southeast instead, and at present it is not clear which is the more probable. It seems to have remained visible for about 3 to 3.5 seconds from the majority of estimates, and was almost certainly well in excess of full Moon brilliance at its brightest to be seen so widely in the near-noon daytim e. Various colours were suggested by different witnesses, always a subjective topic anyway, but most (five people) favoured a very bright silvery white, while one each preferred yellow, orange-yellow or red-yellow for the main fireball. One witness spotted some slight fragmentation very late in the flight, but two other people saw none at all (this can sometimes depend on the angle from which the meteor's path is viewed). One observer in north Norfolk, plausibly the person closest to the possible trajectory, suggested a faint simultaneous sound may have occurred as the fireball flared to its near-terminal maximum brightness. The General Chat Forum has a topic featuring some of the initial notices and subsequent discussion regarding this fireball, including links to some online media coverage (but sadly no images)........ Promising but very near the coast so could well be in the North Sea again...unless we can pin down some more accurate observations to show the trajectory...or somebody reports a hole in their roof/car/dog/raindeer!!! Graham, nr Barwell, UK...about 70 miles from the sightings ---- Meteorites USA <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi List, > > I haven't really been following this but here's another report about the > fireball back on Dec 19th over Wisbech, Cambridgeshire UK > http://www.fenlandcitizen.co.uk/news/Meteorite-falls-over-Wisbech.5943609.jp > > Any other word on this fireball? > > Regards, > Eric Wichman > Meteorites USA > ______________________________________________ > http://www.meteoritecentral.com > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
