Possible Meteor?

Cass

Hey lads and ladies,

I'm in the midlands and was standing out the back of my house 2 minutes ago. Facing South i heard a muffled, yet loud bang then for about 1 second the entire sky lite up as though daytime.

There was nothing in the sky, or more to the point i seen nothing. It appeared to be beyond/over the horizon. Would this have been a meteor or something similar?

tricky D

It sure was!!

00:10 from northeast Dublin, many miles due west, it looked like a fireball, then gave off a nice flash half at through the streak, and actually left what looked like a vapour trail for a few seconds.

I might photoshop what it looked like tomorrow.

2 stroke

Sound must travel faster than light in Laois.

mgsrocks

00.10 from Portmarnock in Dublin. Saw it to the west and turned the sky blue for a second! Amazing sight!

EDIT: Just to confirm what 'tricky D' saw. It was half way through the vapour trail and the sky lit up!

Cass

tricky D wrote: »

It sure was!!

00:10 from northeast Dublin, many miles due west, it looked like a fireball, then gave off a nice flash half at through the streak, and actually left what looked like a vapour trail for a few seconds.

I might photoshop what it looked like tomorrow.

Never seen anything bar the "flash" of light. I seen one a few months ago high up in the sky and it looked impressive. Think i posted about it too.

2 stroke wrote: »

Sound must travel faster than light in Laois.

/facepalm.

Would it make it easier to understand if i said it the other way around.

tricky D

Ezridax wrote: »

Never seen anything bar the "flash" of light. I seen one a few months ago high up in the sky and it looked impressive. Think i posted about it too.

Given where you are without so little background light, I hope you spend a bit more time looking up. Despite me being in a nicely dark part of Dublin, I pine for rural skygazing. [/envious]

I've seen thousands of these and that was one of the strangest.

Cass

What caught me out was the sheer brightness of the "flash" (is that the right word?)

I've seen similar things before, seen the trails, tails, etc but even compared to the last one i seen this was hugely bright. It was like someone turned on the sun for a second.

I'm fairly lucky where i am. The nearest neightbour to me is miles away. I'm on the slieve blooms or close enough to be classed as on them so when the sky is clear you can see everything. As can be seen by my name i'm a shooter so spend alot of time out and about at night so do ctually spend a bit of time looking up (sci-fi fan a a kid)

With the recent meteor shower i've been spending a little more time however i was sorely disappointed with it as during the entire event for nearly 2 weeks the sky at night was cloudy and any gaps in the coud were washed with moonlight. So saw nothing.

I often see satelites flying past, an unusally frequent amount of "shooting stars" (again apologies for the lack of proper phrasing), and then like tonight the rare meteor.


Sorry for the rambling. :)

Snacker

Anti aircraft rocket from Libya gone wrong?

HappyCrackHead

I saw it to. I'm in tallaght i was looking south west. I heard a pop even our my headphones. Then a streak of white with a green flash.

The flash was in the middle

Additional note, I was looking west, but navan is north by north west of tallaght and Iyou were looking north west

MiamTea

I saw it too! By mistake! It scared the hell out of me to be honest but man do I feel privileged to have seen it! Did someone mention that the noise was it breaking the sound barrier? Noice!

Oh and I was looking north west ish (from county Tipp)

Was it a fireball? Could it have landed on the earth? (Just wondering.. I'm not gonna go lookin for it ar anything ¬¬) :L

ca25

I don't suppose there was another one sometime between 01.45 and 02.45? I saw a bright flash through my blinds between those times. Not sure of the exact time as I was dozing off.

Monkaa

I just heard some lad from astronomy Ireland talking about this Q102 so came straight here to see if anyone had seen it! Yous are so lucky...id do anything to see something like that, pure luck tho!

Iancar29

Cant believe i missed this!!!, i was out my back and all around that time!!!


Wouldve been my 2nd one to ever see ...

The first being what made me interested in astronomy in the first place. Saw that when about 8 years ago... :rolleyes:

DarkDusk

Heard this on Mid-West radio this morning.. Anyone got any pics?;)

Cass

I could be wrong, but i doubt anyone got a picture. Unless you knew the exact time and location in the shy you'd miss it. I mean from my perspective it was a second or two at the longest.

Would have been some picture though.

There is another question from a complete noob. Are these predictable? I mean could someone to within a fairly narrow window predict the time and location of one of these or are they only trackable when its "too late?"

HappyCrackHead

Okay here's the weird thing. I thought I heard a pop before I saw it. It was only on the edge of hearing.

But light travels much much slower than light. Weird?

Popoutman

It is possible that that radio waves given off by the plasma ionisation can be turned to sound waves locally near to an observer, by odd things like tree branches shaped just-so, or even the likes of a set of fillings that vibrate from particular radio wave frequencies. The suggestion that another witness heard a pop over headphones does suggest that there was a significant amount of radio emission from this bolide.

Previous eyewitness/earwitness accounts of bolides, (including one from a blind man) suggest that there were whooshes or pops, at a very low volume, often not heard by other people in the vicinity.

I wiah I had seen it myself, sounds like a really nice sight. (pun not intended...)

4gun

Ezridax wrote: »

Hey lads and ladies,

I'm in the midlands and was standing out the back of my house 2 minutes ago. Facing South i heard a muffled, yet loud bang then for about 1 second the entire sky lite up as though daytime.

There was nothing in the sky, or more to the point i seen nothing. It appeared to be beyond/over the horizon. Would this have been a meteor or something similar?

saw that from killarney it was bright.... Poulo didnt believe me.
Knew it wasnt lightening just a bright flash

2 stroke

My appologies to Laois, it appears I may be wrong. Interesting link here, http://istina.rin.ru/eng/ufo/text/42.html

Cass

Right or wrong, spoof or real i couldn't use the above link as a stick to beat you with or say i told you so, but i can only say what way it happened. There was a muffled yet loud bang and i remember thinking there has been an accident on the main road thats a few miles from my back door.

Along the back of my property is a row of trees about 30-35 feet high which "block" or obscure the horizon. As i turned to face the direction of the "bang" the entire sky lit up. The source seemed to be directly infront of me, behind the trees, with the light spreading in all directions but a little fainter to my left or right while still "brilliant" in intensity.

Hence the reason for this thread. I wasn't sure, going on the events i've just described, what it was. I mean we all know that light travels faster than sound. Like the old "trick" i was told, as were most of you i'd guess, about lightning. When you see the flash count the seconds until the bang and thats how far away the storm is in miles. (Again that could be crap, but i was 6 when i was told it)

Seanie M

Good to see a wide number of locations saw this. I saw it myself, just the flash though. MAC has had a few emails and calls about it and the local radio station (Midlands 103) are also doing a spot about it this morning.

Seanie.

Stylesclash07

i saw this to was walking home from work looking down at my phone music sky high in my earphones and heard the pop and the flash made me look up it was amazing to see it while outside never saw anything like it before. I saw it from co.tipp