meteorite?

[MeteorWayne]

Again, really there's insufficient info in your original descrpiton to make any definative statemnts. If I had seen it, I might be able to tell you more. But I was in New Jersey, not Old Jersey

 

[andrew_t1000]

The big Leonid I saw Tuesday night/Wednesday morning lasted 3-5 seconds!
It ended right overhead, leaving a big vapour trail.
For a moment there, when I first saw it coming, basically head on, I was a little concerned.
I have never seen a meteor leave a vapour trail before, but then again I have never been in the "flight path" of one before!

 

[MeteorWayne]

If it lasted 3-5 seconds, it's unlikely it was a Leonid; that's far too long for an object traveling 70 km (40 miles) a second.

It's far more likely it was a Taurid, Andromedid, or sporadic meteor.

 

[andrew_t1000]

If it lasted 3-5 seconds, it's unlikely it was a Leonid; that's far too long for an object traveling 70 km (40 miles) a second.

It's far more likely it was a Taurid, Andromedid, or sporadic meteor.

Was it just coincidence that it came out of the NE just before dawn?
There was a marked Leonid increase Wednesday morning from 3am to 4:30am, like I said I had no batteries left!
I managed to film a beautiful timelapse of Mars and Leo rising, but ALL the damn meteors occurred between frames!
Grrr!
I am in the process of building a 2 camera rig, I'll be taking frames from alternate cameras, 15 seconds apart.
I was wondering, is there any point in building an equatorial mount and tracking the radiant?

 

[MeteorWayne]

There are a number of things to consider when taking meteor photos.

For a shower like the Leonids, one problem is that they are so fast. It wasn't clear whether you are using film (I suspect not) or CCD cameras like most nowadays. You need to get as wide open lens as you can, so there are enough photons to record. The Leonids will cover as much as 30 degrees a second; that really spreads out the photons!

Perhaps a better shower to try would be the Geminids in December. Not only will the rates be far higher for the US (4 - 5 times greater than the US Leonids) but the meteors are slower (about half the speed) putting more photons in each pixel.

Tracking the radiant is one way to go, it would show the radiant, but all the meteors would be very short, since the meteors are heading almost right at you (a meteor exactly at the radiant would appear as a "point" meteor and show no motion at all.

For longer trails from the meteors you want to be at least 30 degrees away from the radiant where the paths are longer.

Whether you track or not, try leaving the shutter open a long as possible until the sky brightens too much in the images (it takes some experiments). You'll have abetter chance of capturing a meteor. My friend Pierre, who drove from Ottawa to New Jersey to capture this year's Quadrantids uses 2 cameras taking 5 minute exposures with different fields of view. He captured a few, my visual rate was over 60 per hour at times. (Man was it cold!!!!!!!!)

MW

 

[99980]

Again, really there's insufficient info in your original descrpiton to make any definative statemnts. If I had seen it, I might be able to tell you more. But I was in New Jersey, not Old Jersey

hello MW...just wondering whether you thought there could be a connection with the NEO seen a few weeks after my sighting, in Sept 2007 I believe

 

[MeteorWayne]

Since no asteroids known have impacted earth other than 2008 TC3, the answer is no, not likely at all.

I know we all want to beleive that, but it never turns out to be true.

 

[spacetrain]

I live in southern Ca. and about 8:30 p.m. June 13, 10, I saw a big green ball like a meteorite came across the horizion of the mountains falling to earth. It came in from the east and went to the south west and fell down to the earth. Just wandering if any one else saw it?