by Dave North
Go to a deep sky event, and get the Shallow Sky happening of a lifetime!
We went to Grant Ranch, on the way to Mount Hamilton from San Jose, California, to see the new hilltop site (and got zapped by a Coleman stuck in a weird place that usually is unoccupied ... but that's not important).
About 10:30 (okay, I didn't look at my watch) something started burning across the horizon, starting in the vicinity of Scorpius from our point of view. It was lowish, and incredibly slow ... much slower than the typical meteor.
Shouts started immediately, of course, and Ak said she thought it would be like most meteors, and gone by the time she looked, so she didn't bother right off the bat.
I think I caught almost all of it, as I was looking that way (coincidentally).
There were two obvious sections -- a brighter leading flare with a somewhat dimmer piece maybe 10 degrees behind it. About halfway across the sky, the dimmer object seemed to crap out.
But the main section just kept going. It took long enough that the 20 or so folks present had an extended conversation as it crept across the sky. We thought the main section looked like it might be calving slightly, and Ak recovered her presence of mind faster than anyone else and tracked the last half of it's passage through her 13.1-inch dob. She was able to report that in fact it was blowing chunks all the way out...
I thought "it has to blow any time now" and maybe give the best Fourth Of July fireworks show ever, but it turned out to be a classic Roman Candle ... just sputtering and flaring until it disappeared over the Diablo Range, leaving a crowd of muttering amateurs, until one person said, "well, maybe the sky is a little bright tonight, but we really got our money's worth there."
Indeed!
I have *never* seen anything remotely like it.
Theories ranged from a piece of space junk coming down unexpectedly to a slow meteor we perhaps caught up to... but as of this writing I don't know.
I would estimate the passage took the greater part of a minute, but I really don't know. Gotta admit, this was one of those staring-at-the-sky-with-mouth-hanging-open kinda thangs ... but if it hit Modesto, I suppose we'll hear all about it.
Dave North
Hall's Valley/Grant Ranch Park
San Jose, California
No Optical Aids
Theories ranged from a piece of space junk coming down unexpectedly to a slow meteor we perhaps caught up to... but as of this writing I don't know.
Richard McKee informs me about observations of a reentering object from California around 22:30 PDT - 05:30 UTC. There are some reports in the sci. astro amateur news group. A first quick look shows a strong possibility that the object was 1990-112F (#21025) SL-12 AUX MOTOR in relatively good agreement - within the error windows - with SpaceCom's, Alan's and my final reports.
I hope to deliver a in depth analysis based on more precise observation reports.
Harro
Harro.Zimmer@t-online.de Berlin, Germany