27 April 2009

Significant Fireball Near Gallup, New Mexico 26APR09


Gallup Fireball Photo by Thomas Ashcraft (c) 2009

Significant Fireball : April 26, 2009 0604 UT(4 minutes after midnight MDT)
by Thomas Ashcraft

There was a significant fireball last night in the vicinity of Gallup, New Mexico, possibly into eastern Arizona.

It was at the edge of my all-sky camera field of view but made a terminal flash possibly full Moon magnitude or brighter.

I hope to hear further reports. I posted some movies with two types of radio reception at the time of the meteor. One is 61.250 MHz forward scatter which produced a good radio reflection. The other movie is ELF/VLF reception. It is *not *conclusive but there is an interesting enhancement of noise at a mid-flare point of the meteor ( 3 seconds into the movie).

There does not appear to be any noise enhancement at the final large terminal burst however. Hence, this specimen fireball becomes another possible ELF/VLF reception but due to dense coincident sferics it is not absolutely provable.

I am still waiting for a big one directly overhead.
http://www.heliotown.com/Fireball_April_26_2009_Ash.html

Source: Thomas Ashcraft
Radio Fireball Observatory
http://www.heliotown.com/
New Mexico

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. Your link is broken as you have it listed.

It should be
http://www.heliotown.com/Fireball_April_26_2009_Ash.html

David said...

I witnessed the same "fireball" approximately 11:15pm on 4/25/09 from a location in central Arizona. The fireball appeared to be quite large and left a visible tail from the point initially sighted until impact (2-3 seconds). A faint red glow appeared on the horizon for a brief moment above the impact point. This was the most spectacular fireball I have ever witnessed in my 47 years. There must be visible evidence of the impact on earth given the nature of the post-impact glow I witnessed.

Anonymous said...

I was traveling eastbound on I-40 shortly after 11pm(MDT) and witnessed what appeared to be a meteor. Site was approx 10-12 miles east of Gallup, NM, and couldn't have been more than a mile north of I-40. At first thought it was lightning, the flash was so bright, then saw distinct reddish glow of object come straight down very fast.

Anonymous said...

We were traveling north from Phoenix on I-17 and I saw a greenish white fireball at approx. 11:05 PM. At the time I would estimate our travel direction to be just slightly east of straight north, and the fireball appeared to be at about 12:30, so it it hard to imagine this is the same fireball reported near Gallup. Is it possible there were two about the same time?

Steve Adelsman
sadelsman@yahoo.com

gail ellen said...

gail ellen prinsloo, wendywood, sandton, south africa.
On 26th April 2009 at approximately 19:00, my husband and I witnessed, very high in the sky, a large wave, with a head, followed by a smaller wave (both had an illuminated aura) and they were travelling swiftly from the south-west towards the north-east: it was gone in 4 seconds!