Shooting star seen over Munich - Thu eve 16.Feb.06

Wow! I just got off the S-Bahn and was heading home and saw an awesome shooting star. Did anyone else see it?? What struck me about this one is that it seemed longer than average...here is what I can remember:

-Time approx 1920 Local
-Location was about 15 degrees southwest from Rigel
-Time of illumination was about 2-3 seconds! Longer than most shooting/falling stars I´ve seen
-About 30 degrees off the ground
-Trajectory heading SW @ about a -45 degrees from the horizontal
-It had about a 2-3 degree long tail
-Was half expecting an impact explosion

Quite cool actually. I made a wish

Been drinking again, Lupo?

Just getting back from our end of Semester celebration...heading to Schranennhalle...class tommorrow at 0730...but I really did see this...really.

Strange end of semester celebration if you still have classes tomorrow. You sure if wasn't more of an 'end of the day' celebration?

Header says falling star, text says shooting star.
So what was it? Make your mind up.

Falling star/shooting star...six of one, half a dozen of the other!

What you saw 12? The most I have ever seen at once is like 2 or 3!
JOKE!

Once we counted something like 50 or 60 in one night. Of course we were observing a comet during several hours and then you get to see quite a few shooting stars.

Did you catch it and put it in your pocket, never let it go!

Its like the film Phenomenon?

Have u any special powers, telekenetic, learning Portuguese very fast?

Maybe best to get a Cat scan tho too.

Got any pics?

The International Meteor Organisation has an online fireball report form. Maybe you should file a sighting, Lupo.

The American Meteor Society maintains a fireball sightings log - but this is only for sightings in America of course.

In the UK the Society for Popular Astronomy maintains a list of recent fireball sightings - but this, in turn, is only for sightings on British soil.

I have been unable to find a sightings log for Germany. But there is the Arbeitskreis Meteore e.V. (meteor research group) who host a German language meteor chat forum. There are reports of fireballs seen on the 11th, 13th, and 14th of February. But none from the 16th, when you saw yours, Lupo. Maybe you should try posting there, either in English or German.

Some relevant German vocabulary:

• shooting star / falling star = Sternschnuppe
• fireball = Feuerkugel
• meteor = Meteor

Here's a nice photo of a fireball: The July 23, 2001, Pennsylvania Bolide. The photo was taken in New York, quite fortuitously, by a man as he was out taking pictures of his children in his backyard. The fireball lasted about 2 to 5 seconds.



See also: Meteor - Wikipedia

Fabulous link EB! I posted my info on the meteor thread, I´m curious what if anything the experts will say. Some great pics on the site as well, including a night rainbow:

What kinda stuff was it shooting, the star I mean?