No picture, but I was outside about 20 minutes ago, facing due south towards Brighton when a fireball shot across the sky. Far too high for a firework. It sent a burning tail of greenish-orange in an arc across about a third of the sky before burning out. Quite spectacular! I presume a meteor. Very fleeting. The whole thing lasted less than 2 seconds. I've only once before seen anything like this. That was about 6 years ago when something similar crossed the entire sky in broad daylight (I seem to recall we watched for an unearthly 20 seconds!). That turned out to be a piece of (I think) Russian space debris re-entering the atmosphere. It triggered sightings globally, and certainly made our day. if only I could remember the date I might be able to google it.
It certainly made up for the constant rain today.
gdare
16 Jan 2008I have seen it few times, nothing special, lasted usually about a second or less, except once when I was a kid. That one was very bright and lasted about 2-3 seconds and crossed whole sky 🙂
Flying Red Fox Blog
16 Jan 2008I see them occasionally when observing the night sky, its very magical to see them.
I often wonder why and of course thankful that no aircraft get hit, its because the meteors usually break up between 100,000ft and 60,000ft or higher, much too high for planes to get even scratched.
After looking through my Stargazing book – rememnber my Christmas photos, what you saw was one of the Radiant of Qaudrantids
http://meteorshowersonline.com/quadrantids.html
Lucky you:D
Words
16 Jan 2008Darko, yes I do occasionally see the white shooting stars high in the sky. Nice to see, but not spectacular. This was much lower (more like a firework, but not!) :wizard:
Words
16 Jan 2008Mark, I suppose there's a theoretical risk for aircraft from the ones that occasionally make it down to the ground. I guess you could call the odds on a hit 'astronomical' :). Thanks for the info on Quadrantids. :up:
SittingFox
16 Jan 2008Wow, that was a lucky sighting! I see shooting stars fairly often, and on one occasion one was slightly multicoloured, but not as anywhere near as dramatic as the one you describe :up: But a very difficult thing to photograph, unless it's kind enough to cut across a part of the sky being photographed for another reason 😀
As for the rain – it's perfectly clear here now, but there's ponds-worth of standing water in the fields!
Words
16 Jan 2008Adele, yes extremely lucky. No noise, and i just happened to be facing the right way otherwise I'd never have known. Very muddy today, but at least no more rain!