Gallup Fireball Photo by Thomas Ashcraft (c) 2009
Significant Fireball : April 26, 2009 0604 UT(4 minutes after midnight MDT)
by Thomas Ashcraft
There was a significant fireball last night in the vicinity of Gallup, New Mexico, possibly into eastern Arizona.
It was at the edge of my all-sky camera field of view but made a terminal flash possibly full Moon magnitude or brighter.
I hope to hear further reports. I posted some movies with two types of radio reception at the time of the meteor. One is 61.250 MHz forward scatter which produced a good radio reflection. The other movie is ELF/VLF reception. It is *not *conclusive but there is an interesting enhancement of noise at a mid-flare point of the meteor ( 3 seconds into the movie).
There does not appear to be any noise enhancement at the final large terminal burst however. Hence, this specimen fireball becomes another possible ELF/VLF reception but due to dense coincident sferics it is not absolutely provable.
I am still waiting for a big one directly overhead.
http://www.heliotown.com/Fireball_April_26_2009_Ash.html
Source: Thomas Ashcraft
Radio Fireball Observatory
http://www.heliotown.com/
New Mexico
5 comments:
Hi. Your link is broken as you have it listed.
It should be
http://www.heliotown.com/Fireball_April_26_2009_Ash.html
I witnessed the same "fireball" approximately 11:15pm on 4/25/09 from a location in central Arizona. The fireball appeared to be quite large and left a visible tail from the point initially sighted until impact (2-3 seconds). A faint red glow appeared on the horizon for a brief moment above the impact point. This was the most spectacular fireball I have ever witnessed in my 47 years. There must be visible evidence of the impact on earth given the nature of the post-impact glow I witnessed.
I was traveling eastbound on I-40 shortly after 11pm(MDT) and witnessed what appeared to be a meteor. Site was approx 10-12 miles east of Gallup, NM, and couldn't have been more than a mile north of I-40. At first thought it was lightning, the flash was so bright, then saw distinct reddish glow of object come straight down very fast.
We were traveling north from Phoenix on I-17 and I saw a greenish white fireball at approx. 11:05 PM. At the time I would estimate our travel direction to be just slightly east of straight north, and the fireball appeared to be at about 12:30, so it it hard to imagine this is the same fireball reported near Gallup. Is it possible there were two about the same time?
Steve Adelsman
sadelsman@yahoo.com
gail ellen prinsloo, wendywood, sandton, south africa.
On 26th April 2009 at approximately 19:00, my husband and I witnessed, very high in the sky, a large wave, with a head, followed by a smaller wave (both had an illuminated aura) and they were travelling swiftly from the south-west towards the north-east: it was gone in 4 seconds!
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