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Saw an impressive meteor from east-central Illinois
last night (Sunday Feb 4th 19:51 CST, Monday Feb 5th 01:51 UT). I'm hearing detail-free reports of it on local radio -- apparently people saw this in southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois too, at least 150 miles away. Here's what I saw. Anyone else on this list see it? It started in the west-northwest, maybe 40-45 degrees altitude and sweeping downward and leftward at roughly a 45-degree angle, disappearing in the trees maybe 10-15 degrees south of west; if you extended its path backward, it would pass through about the middle of Cassiopeia. At its beginning, it might have been mag -2, white; it brightened as it fell, turning brilliant green, at least mag -6 -- bright enough to illuminate the trees a bit. Falling further, it turned white (maybe around 15-20 deg altitude?) and flashed briefly even brighter; then as it finally sank into the leafless trees, at 5-10 deg alt, it turned yellow and dimmed. It went dark before it fell below my horizon. It trailed orange sparks throughout its path but they didn't last long -- it didn't leave a persistent glowing train, or if it did, it wasn't bright enough for me to see from Champaign. It moved *amazingly* slowly for a long-track meteor. I didn't time it, but guessed that it was visible for about 10 seconds. It moved maybe 45 degrees in that time, so it crept along at only maybe 5 degrees per second. I wondered whether it might have been space junk, which is supposed to (a) move slowly and (b) trail fragments as it falls. However... On local radio station WILL-AM this morning was a report of a widely-observed meteor last night in southern IL and southeastern Missouri. A NORAD person noted that it had been a meteor, i.e. not something falling from Earth orbit. Ah, now they're noting a report from near the Indiana border too. I've reported it to the station, and also turned in a report to the American Meteor Society, http://www.amsmeteors.org/ Hope others saw this too. Stuart |
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