(SNES) Fwd: Latest on 05:54 EDT 06 Sep fireball over Northeast USA

[Lew Gramer <dedalus@latrade.com>]

Anyone on these lists happen to witness this (probably) reentry?

Lew


------- Forwarded Message

To: Todd Gross <...>,
        Cary Sneider - Boston MoS  <...>,
        Tanja Diederich - CMP <...>
Cc: Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston <atmob-discuss@atmob.org>,
        North Shore Amateur Astronomy Club <nsaac@nsaac.org>,
        South Shore Astronomical Society <...>
Subject: Latest on 05:54 EDT 06 Sep fireball over Northeast USA
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 09:40:25 -0400
From: Lew Gramer <dedalus@latrade.com>

Here is the latest report as of 9:25 on a very bright (probable) reentry
seen over the mid-Atlantic states about 5:54 this morning. I also got a
call indicating a fireball report on the US West Coast... Obviously that
event is unrelated, but it will certainly cause some Press confusion. Joe
Rao, NY on-camera meteorologist and lecturer at Hayden Planetarium, says:

"A late-report I just received from our News 12 newsroom indicates that
this was a Russian SL-3 rocket body that has been in orbit since 1975 and
apparently re-entered the armosphere about 100 miles off the Delmarva
coastline! -Joe Rao"

If you get witness reports, please direct them to the following Websites:
    http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireball/report.html
    http://www.namnmeteors.org/fireball_form.html

Clear skies,
Lew Gramer


PS: Here are a couple of more detailed (and tantalizing) reports on the
event... And I was even awake at this time, but sadly stuck in an emerg-
ency room waiting area (for nothing serious, by the way). Oh, the irony!

- ------- Forwarded Message #1

From: Joe Rao <Skywayinc@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 07:56:19 EDT
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Fireball, 5:54 EST NJ
To: meteorobs@atmob.org

In a message dated 9/6/01 7:15:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
kzgrey@ntplx.net writes:

<< I was driving out to Sandy Hook NJ this morning and at about 5:54 am I saw
 bright white fireball streak across the eastern horizon with what looked
 like a very small angle of descent.  It lasted about 30 seconds and moves
 south to north.  It left a very long smoke trail behind it and broke into
 several smaller fragments just before it went out.  Anyone else see this? >>

    Apparently quite a few other people did.  According to Tom Kaminsky (sp?) 
who reports morning drive traffic for WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York, he was 
walking out to his traffic helicopter in Linden, New Jersey at approximately 
5:50 a.m. when this object caught his eye . . . and the eye of several others 
who just happened to be outside at that moment.  

    He described it as " . . . looking like an aircraft that was on fire. . . 
it appeared to be trailing flames."  He says that it appeared to be traveling 
rather slowly across the sky, taking fully 90 seconds to move from the 
southeast to the northwest.  He also said that smaller pieces were visible, 
breaking off the main object.  Lastly, he says that it left a " . . . long 
and distinct contrail which remained visible for at least 10 minutes."

    Another eyewitness talking to WCBS reporter Peter Haskell said that he 
didn't see the flames that Kaminsky saw, but confirmed that the object 
appeared to him moving across the northwestern sky.  This person (also in 
northern NJ) also said of the object that there were "two very bright 
concentrations of light within its nucleus."  

    These reports seem to indicate that it was an unusually large meteoroid.  
There has been talk that it might also have been a piece of "space junk" 
although the trajectory described (southeast to northwest) doesn't seem to 
fit the path of an artificial satellite.

    I was initially alerted to this at 6:13 a.m., when I was awakened out of 
a sound sleep by Bonnie Schneider, the morning weather anchor at News 12 Long 
Island, who reported that the newsroom had received " . . . literally dozens 
of calls " by folks who wanted to know about the "meteor shower" that had 
just taken place and "was there anything on the celestial schedule this 
morning" for such an event to occur?

I told Bonnie that if there was, do you think I would have been in bed?   :(

- --joe rao

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- ------- Forwarded Message #2

From: Richard Taibi <...>
To: meteorobs@atmob.org
Subject: (meteorobs) You should 'a' been here a few minutes ago...
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 08:37:37 -0400

Hi Everyone,
   This morning, about 10:00 UT, I saw a bright "cloud" in a familiar 
fireball-created sinuous shape low in the NE sky.  When I first saw it I 
thought it was the far-below-horizon sun refracting light through the top of 
a distant thundercloud's ice crystals.  But then I realized that the light 
should have been a lot redder if the cloud was cumulonimbus, due to the 
angle the cloudtop would have with the sun.  Nooo.., this "cloud" was too 
high, that's why it was so solar colored.
   This mornings news confirmed my belief that I had missed a beauty of a 
fireball.  There had been a report of a meteor around 9:30 UT.  Too bad I 
hadn't been out a half hour earlier...Did any one in the Mid-Atlantic, 
Tidewater Virginia, NY City area see anything?

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