This is a rather lengthy report but I thought you might be interested to hear what is going on as we have had so much media coverage - 3 TV news crews in the Shop, photographers too, dozens of live radio interviews, and many others for newspapers. I've even been interviewed for the "Richard and Judy" show on Channel 4! At the end there is an offer(appeal!) for you to get involved. Hundreds of detailed written reports of the bright fireball that was seen from Ireland around 7:10am Wednesday February 12 have been taken so far (by Friday afternoon some 57 hours after the fireball). Thousands of people have probably tried to get through but only hundreds have succeeded so far. It looks like the meteor itself could have been many times brighter than the Leighlinbridge Meteorite that fell on County Carlow on November 28, 1999. Many people say it 'exploded', 'burst' at the end. Such a terminal burst is useful to help locate the end of the trail, from where any meteorite would have dropped silently for 5 minutes from a height of around 20 miles before impacting the Earth at terminal velocity - about 200 mph. Most reports I've seen said it was white but reds and greens were reported. As with the 1999 Leighlinbridge meteorite the fireball was seen to shed several fragments. Volunteers in our office and the Astronomy Shop staff have spent most of their time just taking reports with all phone lines in use simultaneously for the past 2 days. This has left very little time to analyse the reports. Our meteorite specialist Tony Ryan is out of Dublin until Sunday night so it is proving very difficult for me to do my own job (I haven't!), deal with journalists, photographers, TV camera crews, as well as all the day to day Astronomy Ireland duties I have (we managed to get thousands of your March issues of A&S into the post during the past 2 days), as well as edit and write for the magazine! The best analysis that could be done in the brief time available to me (and no one else has been able to help yet - see below) is that it now looks like a meteorite fall is certain. The number of calls we have received is one indication of this based on past fireball reports we have had! A better indication is the brightness of the object - far brighter than the Full Moon by most accounts. At first it looked like the northwest was the most likely area. Now the West is favoured, possibly out to sea, but possibly over West Galway (even the Aran Islands?). This is still a provisional analysis. For example, one lady outside Sligo is certain it was toward a landmark that is definitely to her northwest. A man from Clare 'saw' it to the left (West) of Mutton Island which puts it due West from Clare! Then another man near Galway saw it relative to Jupiter and that puts it WNW of Galway city. These reports cannot be reconciled to give an accurate location for the end of the fireball. Experience shows people do get things wrong like this - many of the reports we got for the Leighlinbridge meteorite could not possibly have predicted a landing zone in Carlow or any county anywhere near it! So what do you do? The answer is to sift through hundreds of reports for hours and see what the majority of reports are saying. Then we may have to call some eye witnesses to get more details. Ideally we need to go visit some of the people and get exact bearings from them, but Astronomy Ireland does not have the resources to be able to do this last part. We were lucky in 1999 that 3 members saw the fireball at 10:10pm (when many members would be out observing) and plotted its path amongst the stars. From these three sightings alone we were able to triangulate the end point of the meteor to the north part of County Carlow, which is where fragments were ultimately found. SECURITY CAMERAS If we could get one security camera that caught the terminal burst of the fireball we could pinpoint the location quite accurately. Two recordings would allow an even more accurate estimate. I have appealed for all camera operators to check their tape for around 7:10am especially if pointing west. So far no one has got in touch. Some cameras have certainly recorded the event and the could be holding the secret to a national treasure! If you see any camera pointing roughly horizontally and west please ask its owner to check Wednesday morning's tape! If you saw the fireball and know the sky well and can plot the fireball's path amongst the stars, or even relative to Jupiter (which was low in the West) please email us immediately: info@astronomy.ie WEBPAGE We are hoping to set up a webpage with our questionaire for anyone who saw the fireball to be able to report it online. This will save a lot of time on the phone taking down details. Keep checking http://www.astronomy.ie HELP ANALYSE? If you are interested in this meteorite hunt would you like to come in to our offices and help analyse the reports we have received? Possibly call some of the witnesses and help narrow the search? Email info@astronomy.ie if so and leave your name and contact telephone number. HELP TAKE CALLS? We have no one for Saturday and Sunday (Sunday Times are running a piece that is sure to generate even more calls!) to help answer the phones. If you'd like to help email info@astronomy.ie and leave your name and contact telephone number. AND FINALLY, We will be writing a report of this fireball for the April issue of the magazine due out in mid March, even if we cannot be certain where it fell. ===== David Moore BSc FRAS, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 5. Editor, "Astronomy & Space" magazine. ASTRONOMY SHOP: open Mon.-Fri. 9:30am-5:30pm and Sat. noon-6pm. Tel (01) 847 0777. Fax (01) 847 0771. http://www.astronomy.ie (Subscribe FREE to AI's Events emailing list) info@astronomy.ie __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com