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Fireball in central Massachusetts



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 16th 04, 05:11 AM
Dave Bartolini
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Default Fireball in central Massachusetts

Did anyone in the New England area happen to see the meteor/satellite
flameout at around 7:30 this evening?

I was in Ware, Mass (reasonably close to the Quabbin reservoir). My daughter
was with me, and we were getting into our car when she shrieked "Cool! Look
at that!" By the time I turned around, the fireball was behind a house & a
tree, so I said that it was Venus that she was seeing. Venus looked nice
with a misty halo around it. In another second or so, the fireball came out
from behind the house. It was a large object followed by a smaller one. In
the 1/2 second that I watched it, I couldn't detect any loss of brightness.
It was a good 2 seconds at least from when my daughter called out to when I
lost sight of the object behind another house. She said that she saw it
break up when she first glimpsed it.

Based on its behavior, I'm guessing that it was a satellite breaking up on
reentry, but I'm not certain. It was indeed very cool.

Regards,
Dave B.


  #2  
Old March 16th 04, 06:04 AM
Chris L Peterson
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Default Fireball in central Massachusetts

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:11:53 -0500, "Dave Bartolini"
wrote:

Did anyone in the New England area happen to see the meteor/satellite
flameout at around 7:30 this evening?

I was in Ware, Mass (reasonably close to the Quabbin reservoir). My daughter
was with me, and we were getting into our car when she shrieked "Cool! Look
at that!" By the time I turned around, the fireball was behind a house & a
tree, so I said that it was Venus that she was seeing. Venus looked nice
with a misty halo around it. In another second or so, the fireball came out
from behind the house. It was a large object followed by a smaller one. In
the 1/2 second that I watched it, I couldn't detect any loss of brightness.
It was a good 2 seconds at least from when my daughter called out to when I
lost sight of the object behind another house. She said that she saw it
break up when she first glimpsed it.

Based on its behavior, I'm guessing that it was a satellite breaking up on
reentry, but I'm not certain. It was indeed very cool.


I had similar reports from New York and Connecticut. There is a good chance this
was a component of a Russian weather satellite system, the Molniya-M Platform,
that had a predicted decay over the Eastern Seaboard at 7:31 EST (plus or minus
a day).

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
  #3  
Old March 16th 04, 06:07 AM
Richard Crisp
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Posts: n/a
Default Fireball in central Massachusetts


"Dave Bartolini" wrote in message
...
Did anyone in the New England area happen to see the meteor/satellite
flameout at around 7:30 this evening?

I was in Ware, Mass (reasonably close to the Quabbin reservoir). My

daughter
was with me, and we were getting into our car when she shrieked "Cool!

Look
at that!" By the time I turned around, the fireball was behind a house & a
tree, so I said that it was Venus that she was seeing. Venus looked nice
with a misty halo around it. In another second or so, the fireball came

out
from behind the house. It was a large object followed by a smaller one. In
the 1/2 second that I watched it, I couldn't detect any loss of

brightness.
It was a good 2 seconds at least from when my daughter called out to when

I
lost sight of the object behind another house. She said that she saw it
break up when she first glimpsed it.

Based on its behavior, I'm guessing that it was a satellite breaking up on
reentry, but I'm not certain. It was indeed very cool.

Regards,
Dave B.




Here is a posting from the SeeSat list. It sounds like it was the same thing
you saw:

---
From: Edward S Light


While going out to observe some satellites, we saw a rapidly moving
object pass between Alkaid (eta UMa) and Mizar (zeta UMa), moving
horizontally to the right. It was moving very quickly, passing above
Alkaid at approximately 19:27.7 EST (2004 March 16/00:27.7 UTC).
It had a distinctive gold color and was as bright as Jupiter (mag -2.5).
It left a trail and split into two major pieces, the largest one
continuing onward into the trees (we didn't have time to move so
that the trees wouldn't obscure its path).

Did anyone else happen to see [or hear] of this? Was anything
scheduled to reenter about that time over the NE USA?

We've never seen a reentry, and have seen several meteors and
my guess would be a reentering object, but I really don't know.
(Alas, we were so surprised by this apparation that I didn't think
to time its apparent angular velocity )

Clear and dark skies!
Ed Light

Lakewood, NJ, USA
N 40.1075, W 074.2312, +24 m (80 ft)


  #4  
Old March 16th 04, 06:55 AM
Mickelodeon
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Posts: n/a
Default Fireball in central Massachusetts


"Dave Bartolini" wrote in message
...
Did anyone in the New England area happen to see the meteor/satellite
flameout at around 7:30 this evening?

I was in Ware, Mass (reasonably close to the Quabbin reservoir).


You sure this wasn't a grey boy out of Dreamcatcher heading there?


  #5  
Old March 16th 04, 05:03 PM
Dave Bartolini
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Fireball in central Massachusetts

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...

Did anyone in the New England area happen to see the meteor/satellite
flameout at around 7:30 this evening?


I had similar reports from New York and Connecticut. There is a good

chance this
was a component of a Russian weather satellite system, the Molniya-M

Platform,
that had a predicted decay over the Eastern Seaboard at 7:31 EST (plus or

minus
a day).


Thanks Chris. This sounds like a good candidate.


 




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