freelancer79d Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 A lot of you may already have seen this, but if not, here is a Spaceweather report on yesterday's fireball over CA. CALIFORNIA FIREBALL: A remarkable fireball blazed across Califonia on Dec. 27th around 1:50 am PST. Its brilliant blue-green light caught the attention of onlookers (some inside their homes) all the way from San Francisco Bay in the north to the Los Angeles metropolitan area in the south--a range of more than 340 miles. According to one account, the object exploded with a thunderous boom, producing a spray of golden-colored fragments. Dec. 27, 2008 Location: Bishop, California Comments: Grant Bentley: "I got up to go to the bathroom this morning around 1 AM and, as luck would have it, my bathroom's west-facing window framed an intense fireball in the sky about 30 degrees in declination over the Wheeler Crest. It was as if someone had set off a rescue flare that instantly bathed the countryside around Bishop in whitish blue-green light. You could see portions of the object disintegrating as it trended left to right at an angle of about 15 degrees below horizontal. At one point, the path of the incoming meteor went behind a cirrus-stratus cloud that it backlit in snowy green light. After a brilliant show of less than three seconds (time enough to register the impressions I am describing now) it was gone without a trace. It was easily the most massive object I have ever seen burning up as it entered the Earth's atmosphere." Location: Corona, California Comments: Will Wilkens: "At 1:50 a.m. PST I witnessed what appeared to be a large meteor over Southern California. I am located in South Corona in western Riverside County. Sitting at my computer facing my window (blinds were open) which looks north, saw a very bright descending ball of light towards the northwest?..I stood up to look closer and watched it descend quickly behind the nearby hills. Angle of descent was 60 deg. Very bright. Saw it for about 8 seconds." Location: San Jose, California Comments: George Shirakawa: "I was driving in San Jose on Interstate 280 and saw the event...I have never seen anything like it!" Location: Merced, California Comments: Erika Knorn: "Close to 2:00 a.m. I got up from watching TV to let my dog outside. As she was walking around the grass I was looking up over our house and what I saw was the most beautiful ball of light I have ever seen!!!! As it came over my house I saw the ball of light get more of a trail behind it. Then it got brighter and looked like it strated to get bigger, then it blew outwords into a perfect big green circle that formed around the ball. I then saw the green circle flash a couple quick flashes of green/blue light then it looked like the fireball blew gold and white flashes behind it and disappeared! I was so surprised from what I had just seen that I stood outside for a couple of minutes to see if maybe what I had just saw was some kind of missile or flare. Then I heard about 50secs or so later a loud distant boom and a slight rumble like a thunder clap! We had no rain or thunder in our area lastnight so I knew it wasn't thunder! It also sounded like a sonic boom. I have been in Merced for along time and when Castel Air Force Base was active, I did get to hear a few sonic booms and that is what it also sounded like. I called my brother-law Ken in Modesto California north of Merced this morning and I told him what I had witnessed. He then told me he heard something while he was on his computer around the same time I was outside seeing this all happen!!! I have seen meteor showers before, but I have NEVER seen something like this! I'm still in complete wow on the how big it was." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted December 29, 2008 Author Share Posted December 29, 2008 has anyone else heard of this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted December 30, 2008 Author Share Posted December 30, 2008 California Fireball: New Meteorite Fall? Dec 27th 2008 There was an intensely bright and spectactular fireball seen in the northern California skys. Some reports of a huge fireworks like show with bright green blue gold and white flashes of light. The fireball “blew outwords into a perfect big green circle that formed around the ball” according to Erika Knorn of Merced CA. She further described it like this - “I heard about 50secs or so later a loud distant boom and a slight rumble like a thunder clap!.. …sounded like a sonic boom.” When a meteor is witnessed usually it simply burns up and disappears never to be seen or heard again. Sonic booms caused by meteors are even more rarely heard. There might be a slight chance that this meteor impacted the ground. If so there could be meteorites scattered across a huge area. Or, most likely it did not touch down at all, and it’s another very cool meteor sighting. Possible Impact Location? Either way this is an exciting event. The rarity of a meteor such as this is great. Hopefully someone will come forward with some video of this event soon… Until some video is presented of this terrrific show you’ll have to be content with a very unscientific map… I’ve put together a map based on eywitness reports from Spaceweather.com to give a visual representation of the area. I need to emphasize this is subjective at best, as more info becomes available I’ll try to update the map… Right now I can’t find anything more on it so it’s probably just a fireball with no impact at all. Regardless, it’s a very cool meteor nonetheless. No video yet… As Found On: Meteoritesusa.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted December 30, 2008 Author Share Posted December 30, 2008 more info. California Fireball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteoritewatch Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Thanks for the link! I'm following this story closely. Maybe something hit, maybe not. But if you're as excited about the prospect of a new meteorite fall as I am you'll agree that this is certainly fascinating to say the least. I created the map based on the SpaceWeather.com reports here: http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/fireb...ab859vva8mutjc7 Anyone having any info on this please contact me from my site: http://www.meteoritesusa.com/blog You're welcome to join in the fun. Eric Wichman MUSA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 not a problem i am hoping that something is found. then i could go find some Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 I guess that there are some All Sky Cameras that could have caught the event. CA Carson 118.268/33.838 CA Nevada City 121.015/39.262 CA Rocklin 121.214/38.791 CA Yuba City 121.639/39.123 I hope that someone does find out if it has hit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 waiting to hear from CA, Rocklin and CA, Yuba City. The other 2 sites i couldnt find accurate contact info. If I can get data from these two sites is there anyone on the forum that knows how to use it to trianglate a possible search area? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteoritewatch Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Any more word on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 not yet i will see if they wrote back when i get to work i emailed them from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 got some IR pics of it from Yuba City, CA and trying to get the .AVI file from him soon. the high res pics and film were deleted since they were not downloaded in time (vacation). hopefully the IR pics and film along with the eyewitness accounts help us find this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteoritewatch Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 got some IR pics of it from Yuba City, CA and trying to get the .AVI file from him soon. the high res pics and film were deleted since they were not downloaded in time (vacation). hopefully the IR pics and film along with the eyewitness accounts help us find this. Infrared, black and white, real color... no matter a photo that shows this meteor would be awesome! If it has constellations, direction and time stamps in it even better. Could you do me a huge favor and email a copy of the those photos when you get them? That would be greatly appreciated. I'm still searching for video. There's all sky cams in northern Cali, and more than one of them had to have captured this thing. Thanks... Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 as far as i know this is the only all-sky cam to get it. some were clouded over and others were off due to the holiday. if you find more let me know also. send me an email then I'll forward the emails i got to you: dustin.stober@navy.mil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteoritewatch Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 as far as i know this is the only all-sky cam to get it. some were clouded over and others were off due to the holiday. if you find more let me know also. send me an email then I'll forward the emails i got to you: dustin.stober@navy.mil Cool thanks... sent you an email Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 Ok I'll send out the Email to you. Let me know if it helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 Something hit. Now we have to find it...lol. here is the IR video thanks to Larry Strange at the Yuba City Sentinel. 20081227 Merced Fireball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 If you want to look at more Capture from YCSentenil here is the website. YCSentinel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteoritewatch Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 If you want to look at more Capture from YCSentenil here is the website. YCSentinel 20081227 Merced Fireball Link is not working... Can you send it in an email? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 6, 2009 Author Share Posted January 6, 2009 you can go to the main web site then click [fireball events by year] then [2008] then [latest 08 fireballs] you need quicktime installed for the link to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 8, 2009 Author Share Posted January 8, 2009 Here is a collection of the info I found on the web. All Of the info has credits to where it came from. http://freelancer79d.synthasite.com/. More info to come as it is made available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 8, 2009 Author Share Posted January 8, 2009 Well it seems the news of this has died down. i hope that it is found someday. until then i will keep my eyes to the ground to find what falls from the sky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteoritewatch Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Well it seems the news of this has died down. i hope that it is found someday. until then i will keep my eyes to the ground to find what falls from the sky. There's more info it's just hard to find... It has died down a bit on the Merced meteor, but there are people still looking at this event and hoping. This one might end up like the Tollgate expedition on last years Sept fall. There were actually erroneous reports that there were stones on the ground, and even one where a pilot reported seeing an impact. It just goes to show you why meteorites are so valuable to science, collectors, and hunters. I've got a little bit of info but nothing spectacular or anything that would make me jump in my Jeep and head for northern Cali yet. But I'll let you know if I do... In the meantime check out the Cross Lake Shreveport, LA reports. There was a big fireball explosion over there a few days ago. Maybe something came of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelancer79d Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 Well, I am hoping that something does come of this. It would be nice to say that I help find it. I wouldn't mind getting a piece of it also :innocent0002: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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