I was out imaging mars tonight (3rd dec) When out the corner of my eye I spotted this damn thing barrelling in! Heading due north @ zenith.

Bright orange & it ended up splitting in 3 before it burnt out....What a glorious sight!! I actually physically ducked! It scared me for a brief moment. impossible to tell at what altitude it was of course, but there was no noise.

There great those ones - lucky bugger did it ruin your night vision? :-)))

LOL Kearn!

Wonder what the chances are to have the scope pointed in the right direction one night while shooting an AVI Once in a life time, if I'm lucky.

wheres the Kodak when you need it John!

i spose the exposure would handle the brightness if you were doing a planet, but yes it would be an arsy shot!

Maybe this was the same big fireball that was filmed on home video in Perth (I think?) that has been mentioned on news updates today? looks ****** impressive from what I've seen of it!

thanks Don - cant find the video on the net - just the stories - damn! wow sonic booms are rare! did they catch the booms on the footage?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1523140.htm
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...-29277,00.html
normally most individual meteors are only seen from a roughly at most 250 klm radius below the trail - but there are exceptions of course - i know of one that was seen from Adelaide to Melbourne in the 80's

PS i am going to be a pedant Asi - a meteorite is what you find if they make it to the ground

ps i am going to be an idiot asi - and call it a crashing flying saucer!!!

I knew that Kearn, Just checking to see who would correct me first.

PS, I would appreciate a full stop after the end of your sentence, cheers mate.

You....an idiot Dave!?......NEVER!!

Just joking of course Kearn with the full stop rubbish!

Kearn, you'd be the bloke to ask about this: Did you ever pick up any tecktites (not sure on spelling) on the Nullabour Plain years ago or anything? I did have a bag full of them we picked up 20 odd years ago but I can't find 'em!

hehe I deserved that no i havent found any personally mate - but what puts me off looking is the stupid laws in this state regarding recovered meteorites on SA soil - i dont know if you know, but it is illegal to keep or sell meteorites found in this state - it makes me furious! you automatically are supposed to donate them to the museum - its the only state with this moronic law - who do they think they are making a law like that - sometimes i dont like some scientists, killjoys! - some types of very rare meteorites are worth up to $10 000 U.S. a gram!!!
its not like they are fossils or local wildlife! that i can understand,
but these fall from space!
I think they made it coz it is so damn easy to find them on those flat featureless plains/deserts as you mentioned

Well, seeing as I can't even find them, anyone else will have a tough time finding them too! That's absurd anyway, not being able to keep a couple of them!

I'll stuff that law up! Gonna make me a 10 mile diameter net & string it out over the nullabour plain & catch the tektites BEFORE they touch SA soil! Lets see them get around that one!!!

So what colour was it? Silver, reddish green, purple or bright orange????

and just in case anyone thinks that you can get around that - if it is worth money (and i think they all are to some extent) the buyers of expensive ones (scientists/museums in the US usually i think) require a picture of the recovery site with meteorite in its resting position and details of location ect., and they even will analyse the soil remnants from the site -that may be embedded sometimes - they are very strict on that I think

yer it makes me blood boil - your not even allowed to just keep them!!!

I like it dude -- stick it to them!

I did'nt see the whole show Ken, just caught it out the corner of my eye while I was looking thru the finder scope, so I probably missed the 1st 1/4-1/2 second. When I gave it my full attention, it was just starting to seperate into 3 pieces & it was bright orange with a bright orange/yellow tail. Perhaps before I caught it, it was silver or white, not sure.

I only saw one.

So how do you distinguish a meteorite from any other lump of rock you see lying on the ground?

I was driving through central victoria last night at about 2:30am when the whole sky lit up light a lightning strike, I could see everything as if it were the middle of a sunny day. I looked around to the east and saw a huge bright train that lasted at least sixty seconds before fading. This must have been a second meteor and seperate to the WA event because the WA one happend at 9:00pm (Both times in AEDT). I didn't hear any sound though so it might not have been an air burst. I only wish I had been looking at the right spot when it lit up. What are the odds of two such events in the same night? Is it a meteor storm or, doomsday style, a precurser to a big strike (Bet those Planet X doomsday predictionists will have a field day with this, lol).

I think people were just chartering cessna's and flying low over the outback (saltplains/lakes are the best) and noting suspicous rocks via gps and coming back for them - it was too easy