Sounds like space junk to me. The one time I saw it (at Vekol in the late 80's) it literally came up over the horizon, across the entire sky, and "set" on the opposite horizon in 30 sec or so. So 4 or 5 degrees a second sounds about right (we had time to manually track it in my dob). It was seen across a number of states. Lots of color, but I don't recall any hissing. My vote is for space junk. Just tell me where to hand in my ballot. By the way, this may be a rare event today, but our grandkids may get a show every couple years if this article is accurate: http://seattlewebcrafters.com/nsecc/?q=node/view/50 - Bernie -----Original Message----- From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Neville Cole Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 4:41 PM To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Meteor or was it Something Else? Thanks for the link to the Albuquerque Journal Tom. The "emailer's" description pretty much matches what I saw approximately 8 years ago from Victoria, BC. Angularly speaking, "my space junk" was a slow moving object, was seen over a wide geographical area, and broke into diminishingly smaller pieces as it burned up. The tail of glowing pieces was approximately 10 degrees long and resembled the burning engine of common fireworks, or, more morbidly, what you might expect a disintegrating space shuttle to look like. Within a couple days the authorities announced it was re-entering space junk, although I don't recall them ever identifying which particular piece of junk it was. Victoria is maybe 80 miles north of Seattle. Iridium flares aren't sky crossers, as far as I know, so they're probably ruled out. Moving at 5 degrees per second jives with crossing the sky in 30 seconds. It's faster than most satellites as seen in their usual lofty orbits, but probably about right for something burning up at a lower altitude. Based on the time reports, you'd think the object took nearly 2 hours to cross from Seattle to New Mexico. It probably only takes twice that long to fly that distance, so something's fishy there. That was funny about Dr. Sky though. With a moniker like that, he can't possibly be wrong. Neville ----Original Message Follows---- From: Tom Polakis <tpolakis@xxxxxxx> Reply-To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Meteor or was it Something Else? Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 10:40:23 -0400 ---- Neville Cole <nevillecole@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Did anyone here witness the bright so-called fireball visible over Arizona > on Sunday night? (I didn't) > > From the article in the Arizona Republic today, the eyewitnesses talk about > what sounds like something that's considerably slower moving than any meteor > I've ever seen or heard of. A Google News search turns up stories in the Republic and the Albuquerque Journal. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1003meteor1003.ht ml http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=1562&Itemid=2 I'd agree with Neville that it's space junk. The Albuquerque Journal piece mentions that it lasted 30 seconds. Meteors typically move much faster than a hand width (5 degrees) per second. Unless they're right in the line of sight, the slowest meteors come and go before non-astronomer types get a chance to see them. Maybe I should stop speculating, though, and leave this matter for Dr. Sky to explain to the press. Tom -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.