I was fortunate to be looking to the northeast from the tower at BWI when
the meteor appeared in the northern sky. It first skipped once then lit up
with greater and brighter intensity as the seconds went on. First appearing
bluish, it turned mostly green with flashes of orange and yellow as it
moved from the northern sky to the east. It lit up like a sparkler and
pieces broke off before eventually breaking up into multiple pieces at its
last moments. This was one of the best fireballs that I have ever seen
(although I once saw one in the middle of the day that was amazing for that
reason alone).
Jeff, I don't know what sound you heard but I suspect it wasn't the meteor
as the object was probably in the upper reaches of the atmosphere when it
was observed and the sound, if you could have heard it, would have been
tens of seconds out of sync with the visible object. It takes about 5
seconds for sound to travel a mile (remember that during thunderstorms when
your trying to figure out how far lightning is from you), so something
miles up in the sky would take a while for the sound to reach you. Think
about the last time you saw a jet liner a few miles up in the sky passing
by and then hearing the sound far behind the aircraft's location above you.
Regardless, for anyone fortunate to have seen this it was an amazing sight.
The comet was still visible in the NW about 45 minutes or so after sunset
tonight. It has dimmed noticeably since I first saw it on the 12th and it
will continue to do so over the next couple of weeks.
On a bird note. I was at an M&T Bank this afternoon near the airport. While
I was at the drive through I noticed a dead bird in the rocks next to the
building, an apparent window strike victim I assumed. At first I thought
that it was a Mourning Dove as it was about the right size from where I was
sitting but the color was wrong. When I got out of the car to check it out
I found it to be a Woodcock. I was surprised to find it in the middle of
this industrialized area as suitable habitat was some distance away.
Ed Boyd
Chestnut Hill Cove, MD
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Rob Hilton <rob.hilton.2010...>wrote:
> We saw it in downtown Silver Spring!! We didn't hear any noise though.
> We were diffidently looking for the comet, without binoculars and a little
> too early, when it streaked across the sky in a generally easterly
> direction.
>
> It has been reported from Boston to the Outer Banks, so it had to be
> fairly high in the sky for it to be seen over that large an area.
>
> Rob Hilton
> Silver Spring
>
> On Friday, March 22, 2013 8:12:19 PM UTC-4, jugbayjs wrote:
> > Duck! As in "hit the dirt!
> >
> > At ~ 7:53 pm (minutes ago) I was at home (Jug Bay, PG Co), watching for
> evening flights/woodcocks. I had just heard some wood ducks buzz by low,
> their wings whistling in the wind. All of a sudden I heard a much louder
> FFFFFF, expecting more ducks but somehow so close they sounded LOUD.
> Instead, what I saw was a meteorite, VERY LOW, shooting at about NNE and
> blazing orange. Weird thing was, after a second or two it turned green and
> blue before losing color altogether. I was expecting to hear a crash, but
> nothing else was heard. From the trajectory, it looked bound for a landing
> somewhere in AA County, or maybe the Bay if it made it that far.
> >
> > Cheers!
> > Jeff Shenot
> > Croom MD
>
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