Fireball report

Reports Report 2001ah (Event 2001-2013)

Observer
Name	Renata R
Experience Level	3/5
Remarks	I have seen many shooting stars and never anything like this.

Location
Address	Framingham, MA
Latitude	42° 20' 7.48'' N (42.335412°)
Longitude	71° 18' 25.79'' W (-71.307164°)
Elevation	69.93705m

Time and Duration
Local Date & Time	2013-09-17 21:47 EDT
UT Date & Time	2013-09-18 01:47 UT
Duration	≈20s

Direction
Moving direction	From up left to down right
Descent Angle	135°

Moving
Facing azimuth	80°
First azimuth	-
First elevation	19°
Last azimuth	21.68°
Last elevation	8°

Brightness and color
Stellar Magnitude	-22
Color	at first it looked dim orange but got bigger then was large and dark with white flame on one side, encompassing it

Concurrent Sound
Observation	No
Remarks	-

Delayed Sound
Observation	No
Remarks	-

Persistent train
Observation	No
Duration	-
Length	-
Remarks	-

Terminal flash
Observation	Unknown
Remarks	-

Fragmentation
Observation	Yes
Remarks	It got closer and bigger. It looked like pieces of the dark solid part may have been falling off and I could distinctively see flame encompassing this for some time. (It could have been 30 seconds, more or less, it was long and I believe I was driving the direction it fell. I was able to see it in stages.) At first I thought it was just a shooting star and it would disappear in a blink, but it got bigger and seemed to become a dim orange, almost in dots, bigger and moving so I thought it was a comet, and then it got even bigger and whiter and brighter and as it got bigger I could see that there was dark enveloped in white flame. It almost looked as if it were just above and perhaps when it fell away, somewhere by the Hanscom Airforce Base, as a guess from where I was driving on the MassPike. The bottom, solid dark part looked jagged and as if that might have dropped something from the bigger whole of it.

Fragmentation

Observation

Yes

Remarks

It got closer and bigger. It looked like pieces of the dark solid part may have been falling off and I could distinctively see flame encompassing this for some time. (It could have been 30 seconds, more or less, it was long and I believe I was driving the direction it fell. I was able to see it in stages.) At first I thought it was just a shooting star and it would disappear in a blink, but it got bigger and seemed to become a dim orange, almost in dots, bigger and moving so I thought it was a comet, and then it got even bigger and whiter and brighter and as it got bigger I could see that there was dark enveloped in white flame. It almost looked as if it were just above and perhaps when it fell away, somewhere by the Hanscom Airforce Base, as a guess from where I was driving on the MassPike. The bottom, solid dark part looked jagged and as if that might have dropped something from the bigger whole of it.