What an awesome show that was! Three of us saw it too except it was more like 7-8 fireballs. We picked them up in the handle of the big dipper (trees block the rest of the West sky), and watched them through Draco, Lyra and Altair (roughly, I was too excited to pay close attention to exact location). Lasted about 45 seconds and ended at 22:52 EDT June 26, 02:52 June 27 UTC. Fantastic sight, better than Raduga 33. Especially since we were just sitting around BSing and was totally unexpected! Bill Mitchell 42.072N 80.143W --- Terry Pundiak <terrypun@mac.com> wrote: > > Definitely, I saw the same thing... while at Lehigh Valley > Amateur > Astronomy Society's monthly public star party in Allentown, PA , > about > 20 to 30 of us saw it, too... > At first, I thought it was an airplane with its landing lights on, > but > it had a grainy sparkly contrail. So I though it was the beginning > of > a fireworks finale slowly rising rocket above the trees and it had > a > few companion rockets... but it just kept rising and rising very > nearly past zenith and to the other side of the sky... it seemed > to > be breaking up as it went on, maybe 10 to 15 pieces - some moving > ahead of the the others and some showing flare brightening for a > few > seconds. All in all it was exactly like videos that we all on TV > on > the space shuttle reentry disaster videos in Texas, only not as > brilliant. The event would not be even noticed in the daylight. > The brightest objects were about -2 or -3 magnitude. > I wish I had a video camera to keep a record... it was so exciting. > > I looked at my watch when it was over... It was 10:54:45 EDT. The > speed was a bit faster than most all satellites, starting in the > WSW, > getting to about 80 degrees (South) and dimmed quit a bit when it > headed to the > horizon at ESE. > > Terry Pundiak, > Allentown, PA > 40.5700N, 75.4480W > > > On Jun 26, 2004, at 11:59 PM, Scottdalton4@aol.com wrote: > > > I may have just seen my first satellite re-entry or it was the > most > > incredible fireball I could imagine. I saw, at first, 3 objects > > burning very bright and leaving long smoke trails behind them. > They > > started in the NW and were heading East. When I first saw them > they > > were about 20 degrees above the horizon. The objects broke up > into > > many smaller pieces, approximately a dozen, each with its own > tail. I > > watched the pieces until they burned out very close to Deneb. > They > > burned for about a 60 degree span. > > This took place at 10:54 local time(02:54 UTC). My location > is > > 39.6731N 75.7239W . > > At first I thought it may be a Bootid meteor but it was nowhere > near > > the radiant. If anyone could help identify this I would be > grateful. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L > archive: > http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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