Lucan fireball

gbee

91011 wrote: »

I hate to blow everyones theory on this one & agree with above, but it is chinese lanterns.

The description is not how people usually describe the Chinese Lanterns. And the reports from locations several hundreds of miles apart would not support the Chinese Lantern in this incident.

BEASTERLY

Jake1 wrote: »

Actually , no you hang on a second, I know what I saw and how long I saw it for. I already stated it was heading west. Im a grown women who can tell difference between an aircraft on fire and a fireball. Dont be so nasty and assuming.

Look I really don't to cause any offence but it was definatly was not a meteor , I was out watching perseids last night at the time you posted , I was looking all over sky and didn't see a thing , only lots of normal meteors that last half a second.

I think Su Campu was trying to say that if it took 5 mins to cross the sky it would not have the speed to glow. Last night I saw quite a few satellites heading west. At certain times they can glow bright orange due to the sun.

It's absaloutely not possible it was a meteor. I have set a few of these chinese lantterns off before , they are spectacular , and beleive me they go for more than a mile. Ten miles would be more like it!

No offence meant but just trying to clear some things up.

91011

gbee wrote: »

The description is not how people usually describe the Chinese Lanterns. And the reports from locations several hundreds of miles apart would not support the Chinese Lantern in this incident.

They are on sale in novelty / discount shops all over the country - I saw them in one wholesaler since early June.

They will fly for up to 20 minutes and cost about 2 quid each.

BEASTERLY

gbee wrote: »

The description is not how people usually describe the Chinese Lanterns. And the reports from locations several hundreds of miles apart would not support the Chinese Lantern in this incident.

Well I was out last night watching at the time posted here, could not see any evidence of this at all! Just normal 30,000mp meteors.

So that blows the theory of it a space or high altitude event, what ever it was it was low down, moving slow , most prabaly a chinese lantern.

That sighting in carlow is a totaly different report , it says it was at cloud level and heading southeast , not the same sighting.
Be reasonable , these chinese lanterns have really taken off(im proud of the pun!:D) , is it really so impossible that was one was let off in
Dublin and one in london on the same night?

BEASTERLY

Danno wrote: »

Chinese Lantern? Although moving westwards AGAINST a NW wind probably not...

Wind was East/Northeast last night , not westerly.

gbee

BEASTERLY wrote: »

Look I really don't to cause any offence but it was definatly was not a meteor , .

We do have a variety of displays, by far the most common is the small white streak of light, over in a nano second or lasting a few seconds at most.

We have the mini fireballs, fast moving flames that may break up into a few pieces or seemingly just fizzle out. These will last several seconds to tens of seconds.

The skimming meteor may never land and may never burn up completely. They will look like giant fireballs and travel across the sky, they have been known to last minutes.

This one does seem to be a record breaker. Even the satellite as described should not have remained visible for the reported length of time either.

BEASTERLY

gbee wrote: »

We do have a variety of displays, by far the most common is the small white streak of light, over in a nano second or lasting a few seconds at most.

We have the mini fireballs, fast moving flames that may break up into a few pieces or seemingly just fizzle out. These will last several seconds to tens of seconds.

The skimming meteor may never land and may never burn up completely. They will look like giant fireballs and travel across the sky, they have been known to last minutes.

This one does seem to be a record breaker. Even the satellite as described should not have remained visible for the reported length of time either.

If that was the case I would have seen it , as would thousands of others , not just one person.

gbee

BEASTERLY wrote: »

If that was the case I would have seen it , as would thousands of others , not just one person.

I know, I ran out a few times as the report was dropping in 'live', I did have cloud in the critical area, but I had been looking out at the reported time too and I should have seen something in the clear bit of sky.

But I soon got almost total cloud cover.

When I came in to see the first report last night I said 'Dammit, how did I miss that?' ~ rushed out again cloud was gathering in patches.

I agree, more should have seen this.

BEASTERLY

gbee wrote: »

I know, I ran out a few times as the report was dropping in 'live', I did have cloud in the critical area, but I had been looking out at the reported time too and I should have seen something in the clear bit of sky.

But I soon got almost total cloud cover.

When I came in to see the first report last night I said 'Dammit, how did I miss that?' ~ rushed out again cloud was gathering in patches.

I agree, more should have seen this.

The only cloud here was to my southwest , so I had a perfect view. I was raging about it too when I first heard.

Su Campu

Jake1 wrote: »

Actually , no you hang on a second, I know what I saw and how long I saw it for. I already stated it was heading west. Im a grown women who can tell difference between an aircraft on fire and a fireball. Dont be so nasty and assuming.

I'm not being nasty. As others have said, you would imagine something so spectacular and rare as a 5 minute fireball would have at least made the news, but you're the only one on here who saw anything. You would imagine several pilots would have seen something, but there's not a mention on PPrune either, which is a fairly good indicator, as virtually everything (good and bad :rolleyes: ) gets a mention on there. Incidentally, there's no mention of a plane in troulble either, so it most likely wasn't that either, but what I said was that was a more likely explanation.

I don't know what you saw. I just don't think it was a meteor, that's all.

BEASTERLY

Su Campu wrote: »

I'm not being nasty. As others have said, you would imagine something so spectacular and rare as a 5 minute fireball would have at least made the news, but you're the only one on here who saw anything. You would imagine several pilots would have seen something, but there's not a mention on PPrune either, which is a fairly good indicator, as virtually everything (good and bad :rolleyes: ) gets a mention on there. Incidentally, there's no mention of a plane in troulble either, so it most likely wasn't that either, but what I said was that was a more likely explanation.

I don't know what you saw. I just don't think it was a meteor, that's all.

Exactly , nobody was being nasty or meant any harm, chances are it waasn't a high altitude firball at all because otherwise it would have been visable from almost everywhere in NW Europe , and with anybody who is interesed in astronamy would be out watching last night , and would be the first people to report it.

At the time reported I saw an aircraft heading towards dublin , would had have a perfect view. Certainly any nightime air corps operations such as maratime patrol, garda air support ect. would certainly have made a report if anything was seen and we would have heard that in the news by now. I suppose airline pilots would have too?

Hornswoggle

Spotted this when I was driving home through Firhouse in Dublin last night so I pulled over and watched it.

It saw it for about three minutes, initially thought it was a plane on fire but knew it couldn't be from the size and speed. Lost view of it for roughly a minute when a cloud got in the way but it reappeared then and was less bright.

As far as I'm concerned it was definitely a meteor, not a chinese lantern. I've lit chinese lanterns loads of times and it had a completely different shape. What's more, it had a huge tail and slowly burned out as it edged towards the horizon. Very beautiful and am chuffed I spotted it! IMO it was a skimming meteor.

spideog7

Iridium flare perhaps?? Can be very bright, although they normally don't last that long. Basically happens when a Satellite shines the sun onto the dark side of the earth (like you can do with a mirror or your watch on a sunny day), they call them Iridium flares because they are most common with the Iridium satellites due to their shape.

Here's a table of them over the past 48 hours (from this website) for the location at the the N4 M50 intersection, I just picked it randomly. Current time at home is BST (GMT+1) the times listed on this table are GMT, I dunno if any of the times line up with when you said it though.



You'll notice that these have a fairly small footprint because they just shine on a specific area so the last one on that table for example shows you 40km from the centre and the intensity has reduced from -8 (very bright- twice as bright as Venus) to 0 (dim like a star).

Redsunset

Very interesting because they were all about it on Beat fm this morning,loads of callers had seen it so what went on they don't know.

You can all believe what you want I know what I saw, and for the record, i was NOT the only one that saw it. Dont assume because you miss something, that everyone does. Dont be hatin' on me.:D

It was not chinese lanterns, Ive seen them, it was not aircraft, it was a fireball that lasted aprrox 5 mins streaking across the sky.

Anyway, peace all, hope there is some good spotting for us all tonight.

BEASTERLY

Jake1 wrote: »

You can all believe what you want I know what I saw, and for the record, i was NOT the only one that saw it. Dont assume because you miss something, that everyone does. Dont be hatin' on me.:D

It was not chinese lanterns, Ive seen them, it was not aircraft, it was a fireball that lasted aprrox 5 mins streaking across the sky.

Anyway, peace all, hope there is some good spotting for us all tonight.

If your absaloutely sure of what you saw that's fair enough.

I think it's time to focus on tonight , maybe a repeat of what you saw over Wex?:)

Cloud is starting to break up now so hopefully!:D

Cheers for that Beasterly.
I would like to say sorry for jumping down everyones throat the other night. I had a **** week, and was very highly strung

Hope some of you all saw something last night, too cloudy here.

WolfeIRE

Jake1 wrote: »

I will. Im so stoked. It was my Mams funeral yesterday, and I asked her for a sign..

sincere condolences Jake. Hope you and the family are doing ok

BEASTERLY

Jake1 wrote: »

Cheers for that Beasterly.
I would like to say sorry for jumping down everyones throat the other night. I had a **** week, and was very highly strung

Hope some of you all saw something last night, too cloudy here.

Sorry for your loss Jake1.

I suppose I was a bit harsh too.

Not a thing to be seen here last night , 100% cloud cover:rolleyes: , will try again tonight.:)

Thanks for the kind words. We are all doing well, great memories to get us through it.

I sat out last night for a bit, but only managed to see one shooting star. Very short, but very sweet

Hooter23

Any1 else see a bright glowing thing in the skies of Galway city just now :eek:
Moving too slow to be a fireball must have been one of those Chinese lanterns r sumthn it just disappeared up through the clouds do those Chinese lanterns go up that high:pac:

M.T. Cranium

Jupiter is now very bright and quite easy to spot in the east to southeast by about 11 p.m. as it rises towards a position high in the south around 0200 local time. It is a golden-white hue. Perhaps this is what you saw?

musicmaster

Hi there, great to see that people are posting about these Meteors lately, - I have a question for anyone in Dublin - tonight, Sunday, Aug 15th at 23.50-23.55 these was a HUGE fireball gliding across the sky from the west toward the Irish sea...it got really bright and Orange, then started dropping off kind of quick but took at least a full 2-3 mins to go across fully. One of the coolest things Ive seen in the skies in a long time. There wasn't a sound from it but it certainly wasn't a plane, a few people stopped in the street to look at it, and there were no flashing lights. Anyone see anything across the country around roughly the same time?!

Cheers guys.

91011

There are NO meteors visible in the sky the way people are describing here.

THEY ARE CHINESE LANTERNS.

No ifs, no buts, no maybes. 100% chinese lanterns. - They can travel for up to 20 minutes, the creat a large orange glow and they can move for up to 10 miles.

Go buy a couple and create your own "meteor" (they are only a couple of quid and can be found in tons of novelty / discount type shops)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV7nQU7iaCg

and about a million other videos showing them too.

WolfeIRE

story from clare today. Doolin Coast Guard says lanterns leading to increased number of false alarms.

http://www.clareherald.com/regional/2493-chinese-lanterns-light-up-emergency-switchboard.html

Don't know who is more reckless - those who release the lanterns or those who call 999 because they cannot tell the difference between a floating candle and a flare.

bogman

spideog7

Not an Iridium flare, though intensely bright the flare lasts seconds, I have seen an Iridium flare twice within 5 secs or so

And no way would a meteor fireball streak for 5 minutes, what are they traveling at, 25-50 miles a second, most fireballs are just pea size objects, a huge fireball like this would have been audible too

Try asking on the IFAS site
http://www.irishastronomy.org/cms/forum

91011

Bought a couple of these yesterday. €3.50each

The multi packs are available with various colours in them (red, blue, yellow)

They are about 3ft x 2ft in size. They will travel for up to 10km.

Deep Easterly

OK, in the last 2 mins I just seen a ball of light rapidly head from SW to NE and then disappear! :eek:. Looked like a meteorite but lasted much longer (about 3 seconds) and was much brighter but moved with the same speed before it just disapeared!

Did anyone else spot? (I am in Galway)

Deep Easterly

Deep Easterly wrote: »

OK, in the last 2 mins I just seen a ball of light rapidly head from SW to NE and then disappear! :eek:. Looked like a meteorite but lasted much longer (about 3 seconds) and was much brighter but moved with the same speed before it just disapeared!

Did anyone else spot? (I am in Galway)

beware of ' the Chinese lantern brigade ' LOL

WolfeIRE

interesting deep. hope it wasn't an aircraft. googled there for latest news and also searched twitter but nothing has turned up yet