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Remarks |
The area I was at is at the edge of large populated area to the NE, E & SE, but everything west & north for about 10 mi. is wilderness, so the section of sky was relatively dark (not like most of Oregon). This fireball shocked me as to how bright it was. I have seen quite a few shooting stars & the brightest one prior to this was in the same part of the sky & trajectory only in much darker skies about 50 mi. west & around 2006. That one had a blueish ending that actually glowed for a sec. after it burnt out. My pt. is that this one was as you say, a ball of light, not like a really bright star. The way I would describe it is it was like a car headlamp from about 1/4 mile. It was so bright that the word ball fits as it was more than a really really bright star.
It was hard to calculate the brightness using your scale because the moon & sun are so much bigger. You should actually have a smaller light scale, starting with a really bright star going up to the sun like brightness only much smaller. Maybe you don"t want to put images into peoples memory & want them to use their recall. So maybe you could only give 4 examples & leave spaces between them so the observer could choose which one it was closer to. I think you would get a more accurate brightness.
I also found it difficult to accurately report how high above the horizon. Where I saw it, it was just above the tops of a tree line 100' tall & 100' away across a flat parking lot. Behind that the terrain slopes down & then back up a hill so there was no true horizon to judge from. It would be better for me to describe it by hand & finger width from about the bottom of the trees, athough i won't be back to the spot for a couple of days. I wish there was a way to modify this after it is sent.
I thank you for your work & websight!
I am amazed that there weren't more reports from California given the time of evening that it occurred. Your website was the 2nd on the list of results of my search using startpage.com search engine. " shooting star sightings over california about 6:14 pm thursday march 5 2020 "
Sorry for such a long "report". |
