trail-free meteor?

Been a long time since I have been here folks, too many zetafreaks, but the
other morning I witnesse something so odd that I had to come here in the
hope of finding out what it was.
It was around 6am(GMT) on Wednesday morning of this week. Was looking south
east and having a cigarette, when myself and a cow orker both seen the same
thing.....
What we observed was, essentially, a meteor. It moved vertically downward
from our perspective, moving through aroung 25 degrees of arc on the sky,
vanishing about 30 degrees from the horizon, and was as bright as the
brightest star in the sky at the time ( venus?). What was odd ( and what
propmpted a lot of "did you see that too????")was that it was a point
source of light, not even the merest hint of a trail or afterglow of any
kind whatsoever. it looked more than anything like a satellite passing
over, but speeded up 1000 fold.
The only thing that comes to mind at all ( and this will probably get me
laughed out of here) is that maybe the recent solar activity was having
some effect on the outer atmosphere that prevent the formation of the trail
( it's mainly ionized gass isn't it?), though I am not sure the effects had
reached us by that time.

Does anyone have any ideas at all as to what may have been going on, because
we ) myself and the other witness) are bother starting to think we may be
insane

"Steve Campbell"
Does anyone have any ideas at all as to what may have been going on,
because
we ) myself and the other witness) are bother starting to think we may be
insane

How fast was this "point" (meteor?) moving? As quickly as a "normal"
meteor or slower? At first impression I would think it was a satellite but
you seem to have considered that. I don't think the recent solar activity
would have anything to do with the ionization process of an entering
meteoroid. It may even enhance the ionization process. No all meteors
leave a train. This is often persistence of vision that gives you the
impression of a train.

Ed Majden
http://members.shaw.ca/epmajden/index.htm

Ed Majden wrote:

How fast was this "point" (meteor?) moving? As quickly as a "normal"
meteor or slower? At first impression I would think it was a satellite
but
you seem to have considered that. I don't think the recent solar activity
would have anything to do with the ionization process of an entering
meteoroid. It may even enhance the ionization process. No all meteors
leave a train. This is often persistence of vision that gives you the
impression of a train.

I'd say it was travelling at the same speed as a normal meteor, or VERY
slightly slower, though that slight slowness may be to do with the unusual
( for me to witness) near vertical path.

The best way I can describe it is as a "shooting star", in a quite literal (
visually obviously) sense. It just looked like an object of slightly dimmer
magnitude than venus had decided to pop into existence, hurtle down for a
second or so leaving no trail or wake and then cease to be. The only other
thing to note was that it was VERY white in colour.
It did look more than anything like a satellite, quite a large one, or a
good reflection from big solar panels, but the speed was FAR too high, I
doubt even an object in the lowest possible stable orbit would travel that
fast, though I may well be wrong.


Perhaps the fact that the first glow of dawn was visible just rendered the
trail invisible, but that area of the sky was only just beginning to show
signs of not being night time any more.

"Steve Campbell"
I'd say it was travelling at the same speed as a normal meteor, or VERY
slightly slower, though that slight slowness may be to do with the unusual
( for me to witness) near vertical path.
It did look more than anything like a satellite, quite a large one, or a
good reflection from big solar panels, but the speed was FAR too high, I
doubt even an object in the lowest possible stable orbit would travel that
fast, though I may well be wrong.

Steve:
Have you looked at the "Heavens Above" web site? They provide satellite
predictions for your location. Perhaps you could correlate the time of your
observation to one of the satellite transits. It may be worth a look.
Ed

Ed Majden wrote:


"Steve Campbell"
I'd say it was travelling at the same speed as a normal meteor, or VERY
slightly slower, though that slight slowness may be to do with the
unusual ( for me to witness) near vertical path.
It did look more than anything like a satellite, quite a large one, or a
good reflection from big solar panels, but the speed was FAR too high, I
doubt even an object in the lowest possible stable orbit would travel
that fast, though I may well be wrong.

Steve:
Have you looked at the "Heavens Above" web site? They provide
satellite
predictions for your location. Perhaps you could correlate the time of
your
observation to one of the satellite transits. It may be worth a look.
Ed
Thanks Ed, I'll look into that, hopefully it will provide an explanation.

posted & mailed

Steve Campbell wrote:

Steve:
Have you looked at the "Heavens Above" web site? They provide
satellite
predictions for your location. Perhaps you could correlate the time of
your
observation to one of the satellite transits. It may be worth a look.
Ed
Thanks Ed, I'll look into that, hopefully it will provide an explanation.

Nope, i had a look and there was nothihng around that this could have been.
At least I am not a Kook, and am not about to start claiming little green
men

Funny,
I and my son saw the same think in France where we live a couple of
weeks ago . This was traveling NE-SW. As we were in a built up area we
could only see about 60 degrees of the trajectory. However it was a very
bright single point WITHOUT trail, travelling far too fast to be a
plane of any sort and far too slowly to be a sat.

You could have seen an Iridium flare if you were within an hour or so of
sunup/sundown- they start as a fairly dim point, brighten to a maximum and
then diminish down to nothing. They seem to move fairly quickly because the
satellites are fairly low. We see them fairly frequently here in the desert-
a bright one (Mag -7 or so) in quite spectacular. Go to
www.heavens-above.com for details. They have a means for you to input your
position (needs to be fairly accurate) and you can see what satellites and
flares will be visible in your area.

--
Jim Atkins
Twentynine Palms CA USA

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
- Groucho Marx

Steve Campbell wrote in message ...
Been a long time since I have been here folks, too many zetafreaks, but the
other morning I witnesse something so odd that I had to come here in the
hope of finding out what it was.
It was around 6am(GMT) on Wednesday morning of this week. Was looking south
east and having a cigarette, when myself and a cow orker both seen the same
thing.....
What we observed was, essentially, a meteor. It moved vertically downward
from our perspective, moving through aroung 25 degrees of arc on the sky,
vanishing about 30 degrees from the horizon, and was as bright as the
brightest star in the sky at the time ( venus?). What was odd ( and what
propmpted a lot of "did you see that too????")was that it was a point
source of light, not even the merest hint of a trail or afterglow of any
kind whatsoever. it looked more than anything like a satellite passing
over, but speeded up 1000 fold.
The only thing that comes to mind at all ( and this will probably get me
laughed out of here) is that maybe the recent solar activity was having
some effect on the outer atmosphere that prevent the formation of the trail
( it's mainly ionized gass isn't it?), though I am not sure the effects had
reached us by that time.

Does anyone have any ideas at all as to what may have been going on, because
we ) myself and the other witness) are bother starting to think we may be
insane

I hope that you could estimate its impact point- what if it was a lump
of gold?
Trails are the burning up of the meteor, but if it were inert??
Chemical compound most prevelent (IIRC) is nickel, but why not another
heavy element?
Compare positions of gold fields, add in geological history (formation
of mountains, erosion, continental drift etc)- and see if the pattern
in some cases doesn't hint at the gold being of meteoric
origin...........

Jim G

Jim Greenfield wrote:

I hope that you could estimate its impact point- what if it was a lump
of gold?
Trails are the burning up of the meteor, but if it were inert??
Chemical compound most prevelent (IIRC) is nickel, but why not another
heavy element?
Compare positions of gold fields, add in geological history (formation
of mountains, erosion, continental drift etc)- and see if the pattern
in some cases doesn't hint at the gold being of meteoric
origin...........
welllllll, two things really.
First, it never made the ground, it vanished when still several degrees
above the horizon. Secondly, as well as the burning up of the object the
trail of a meteor is also made up of atmospheric gas that has been ionised
by the violence of the object's passage.