I saw a meteor

El Gordo
El Gordo Posts: 394
edited December 2010 in Commuting chat
Did anyone else see a meteor last night on their way home :shock: ?

About 17:30 there was a bona-fide ball of fire streaking across the sky for a few seconds. I was on the A6 in Derby, heading north and it was going east to west.

It was definitely not a firework before anyone asks.

Comments

  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    El Gordo wrote:
    Did anyone else see a meteor last night on their way home :shock: ?

    About 17:30 there was a bona-fide ball of fire streaking across the sky for a few seconds. I was on the A6 in Derby, heading north and it was going east to west.

    It was definitely not a firework before anyone asks.

    The cold tempreture and moisture in the air were at perfect levels to create light reflection/refraction. London is in the perfect position for the reflection in the sky.

    I was riding my bike at the perfect time. I was going too fast for the human eye to see without blurring, which is why my reflection looked like fire streaking across the sky.

    True story.
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  • mercurykev
    mercurykev Posts: 264
    I saw it as I was riding home. I thought that it was some sort of firework but the angles were all wrong. It was very impressive.

    It's been on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11954932
  • Agent57
    Agent57 Posts: 2,300
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  • mac10
    mac10 Posts: 13
    Yep, I saw it too...

    due to the weather i'm on the MTB and I'm off road to avoid the motorists; as a result there is no city light pollution so I get a pretty clear view of the sky.

    I thought it was a fire work at first, a sort of green fizzing streak across the sky, but it had a realitively flat trajectory - so figured it must be a meteor.

    I then thought back to a QI episode were Fry said (so it must be true) you are more likely to get hit by a meteorite than get struck by lightning, so I picked up the speed a bit.

    I then started to worry it could have been a UFO and spent the rest of the journey worried I was going to get abducted by aliens - all in all it made for a very fast commute. :roll:
  • Kieran_Burns
    Kieran_Burns Posts: 9,757
    Have you seen any large moving plants and is your eye sight failing???? :shock:
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  • mac10
    mac10 Posts: 13
    nope and nope .. 20:20 vision which is amazing considering...
  • EKE_38BPM
    EKE_38BPM Posts: 5,821
    Every year on my birthday there is a massive meteor shower (a little birthday present for me from the cosmos). Even in the outskirts of London I see around one a minute.

    There are two big meteor showers each year IIRC, the Leonid in August and the Perseid in December.
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  • El Gordo
    El Gordo Posts: 394
    mercurykev wrote:
    I saw it as I was riding home. I thought that it was some sort of firework but the angles were all wrong. It was very impressive.

    It's been on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11954932

    Glad it wasn't me just seeing things. I've seen the occasional meteor shower before but this was a proper fireball complete with a sparkly tail.

    It looked liked it was heading for a crash landing in Ashbourne although I suspect my perspective is a bit out and it actually landed in the Atlantic.

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