UFO Sighting August 7th 2009 appx. 8:37 EST

Could someone take a look at these pictures - these are all different parts of the sky at the same time of the day -
In the 4th pic there are 2 balls - the camera lens is clean -
Anyone have any ideas about it?
groups.yahoo.com...

Please u2u me if you do -

Originally posted by JPhish
Most of them in the first video seems a lot brighter than the one I saw.

Not surprising, since the vast majority of meteors are very faint, but keep in mind the video is a compilation of some of the most exceptionally bright meteors ever caught on camera as far as I'm aware. Even those are mostly quite puny compared to what is possible/what has been observed in some exceptional cases in the past.

Originally posted by JPhish

Perhaps even temporal ie time seems to slow down, which is what happens in fast passed life threatening situations.

possibility, but I don’t think my perception of time would change the amount of steps I could take off the curb. I’m fairly certain it was visible for over 2 seconds.

You have a good point there. I just like to explore the various possibilities.

Originally posted by JPhish

It might not even have been a Perseid meteor, although IMO your description matches a Perseid pretty well. A random meteor that is not associated to any shower might be to blame for what you saw.

My father watched the sky with a telescope for several hours after I saw it. He didn’t see anything the rest of the night.

Your father made a fatal mistake - restricting his field of vision with a telescope... Although in some cases telescopic meteor observing is used to study meteors, telescopic meteor observing is generally more fruitful with meteor showers that have a larger proportion of faint meteors than the Perseids, which is know for its relatively brighter meteors and fireballs.

When observing meteors, most of the time it's done "naked eye", and lying flat on you back at an observing site where obstructions like buildings or trees that obscure your view of the sky are at a minimum. Good observing sites are hard to come by in this day and age, but finding a spot where you can see a good part of the sky, and being horizontal/looking more or less straight up gives you a much better chance of catching any meteors that may appear. Of course you also have to try and keep as much stray light pollution out of your eyes as well.

Originally posted by JPhish

The photograph I took (with quite a wide angle lens) in particular may also be slightly misleading to the untrained eye... If you look at Orion in the lower left of the image, and it's size in comparison with the rest of the photo and the meteor, you can see the meteor is very long. This can make it appear to be thinner than it actually was in real life.

yes I didn’t realize that when I first looked at it. Incredible dimensions . . . still it seems a lot thinner than what I saw. Perhaps not 20X thicker. Honestly the scale of your photo really threw me off! Perhaps only 6 or 7 times thicker now that I have a better grasp of the scale of the picture.

That's OK. I think the majority of people would not understand the scale... till they actually stood outside and observed Orion (for anyone out there reading this, try it for yourself and you will see what I mean - Orion is low in the East just before dawn at this time of year).

I'm also not sure if the trail captured on film is thinner because the eye is more sensitive... In meteor photographs, it's the bright head (which may appear to be smaller than the width of the trail) of the meteor that "writes" the image onto the film, and generally only bright-very bright meteors have trails that are luminous enough to be captured on film.

Originally posted by JPhish
I’m not going to have much luck finding non polluted skies. I live in NYC.

That's unfortunate, but it is still possible observe an enjoyable shower under light polluted skies, although obviously the further you can get from lights the better, even if it's only to a park or golf course a little bit out towards the countryside. I live in the suburbs of a large and very light polluted city, but still observe from the back garden when I can't get out to the countryside.

Basically, if you can see more than a couple of stars, you can see the brighter meteors of most major showers, although you are bound to miss many more fainter meteors in most cases. The brightness index for any given meteor shower can vary from year to year quite significantly, so some years a meteor shower will be rich in bright meteors, but in other years they will be few and far between, so there is quite a large element of luck involved in many cases.

Originally posted by JPhish
Thanks for sharing your beautiful pictures, videos, and knowledge CHUD.

My pleasure JPhish. I'm glad I could assist. Thank you for sharing your observation and posting it here on ATS.

reply to post by spinkyboo


Sorry spinkyboo, your picture is only visible if you are logged in and a member...

Try uploading it somewhere like here:
www.flickr.com...

Thanks