Texas Fireball, 11:15 PM, July 26, 2000 CDT
(Updated August 25, 2003.)
At about 11:15 p.m. on Wednesday evening, July 26, 2000 (Central Daylight
Time, or 04:15 July 27 UTC), a number of persons in central and east
central Texas were fortunate to observe a very bright fireball meteor,
and one of them heard a sonic boom.
The first report I saw via the Internet was one from another member
of the Austin astronomy society. He and a friend of his saw it from
Leander, Texas, northwest of Austin:
] Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 00:47:48 -0500
] Subject: Bright Meteor Last Night!
]
] Hi Folks,
]
] ... right at the end
] of my session, precisely at 11:14:45 pm July 26th CDT, an
] enormously bright "WHAT THE...H" meteor flare occurred in
] the east around a third the way up.
A friend and I saw it from west-southwest of Austin, Texas, east of
Dripping Springs. Here's what I wrote in response to the above message:
Thursday, July 27
"We too!"
A friend ..., who was an AAS member a couple of years ago,
and I saw this one from his driveway, a location north of 290
between the "Y" in Oak Hill and Dripping Springs. He
had pointed his 8-inch SC telescope at Albireo, and just a few
seconds after finishing timing a tumbling/flashing Iridium
satellite I was about to take a look, when the ground lit up!
We both wheeled around to see it. I believe that he saw a
little more of it than I. It was similar in brightness and
colors to the one I reported several nights ago, but this one
was not hampered by a nearly full Moon. So it was a definite
"Wow!!" I clicked my stopwatch at 4:14:41
UTC -- just 40-some seconds after my last click on that Iridium.
From our location it seemed to be very close to or perhaps just
slightly south of due east when it burned out. More! More!!
(Actually, I saw a few ordinary meteors also. [He]'s got a pretty
dark site for being only about 23.5 miles from 45th & Speedway.)
Later I found
a Web page with four separate eyewitness reports
of the same event from locations near Houston:
Then, on January 13, 2001 (about six months after the event), I
heard from another eyewitness of the same event, and she informed
me of some other online eyewitness reports as well:
Smithville
Iola (also heard sonic boom)
Fulshear A
and Fulshear B (same eyewitness)
Brenham (includes a second-hand report from his neighbor)
Finally, almost a year later, I heard from Mary in Georgetown, Texas,
who found this Web page and who also saw the same fireball!
All of these reports taken together may serve as a fair example of
the visual appearance of a very brilliant fireball meteor to more
than a dozen people in various locations. It certainly was a beauty!
Ed Cannon
Austin, Texas