[meteorite-list] Fw: Re: - "witness" to July 6 Fireball PA

[Chris Peterson]

No, witness reports continue to be a big help. In particular, reports about 
sonic booms can be very helpful. It has been observed in many cases that 
these tend to be heard only near the fall zone, and this has proved very 
useful for a number of meteorite hunters. If you have good information about 
the location of the terminal explosion, the next step is to interview people 
on the ground in an effort to narrow down the search area.

There should be good radiosonde data available in most places as well. Once 
the height of the terminal explosion is determined, this should be used to 
model the dark flight. This data can be the difference between an 
uncertainty on the ground of a few square miles versus hundreds of square 
miles.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <MeteorHntr at aol.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Re: - "witness" to July 6 Fireball PA


> Chris,
>
> I agree to a point.  But if  one has some good video, there is nothing 
> even
> the best eye witness of a 1 am  fireball could add.  Once it goes dark,
> there is nothing to see to report  on.  Maybe if it was a day time 
> fireball,
> someone might see a stone hitting  the ground, but not at night.
>
> The burn out spot is as close as we can  get, then it is time to walk, or
> to ask, via the media, for other people to look  in that area.
>
> Of course even more camera info can only help beyond just  finding the
> landing zone.
>
> Steve