Mike's Astro Photos

Since the begining of this adventure I have wanted to share all of the information I have about the meteor event and the possible where abouts of the meteorites. A lot of very brilliant people have worked hard to aquire and analyze all of the data used to project the path and determine the impact point and the possible strewn field location. Rob Matson a scientist and meteorite enthusist compiled and analyzed the data and wrote a computer program in Fortran to create a 3D model of the Mason Dixon Meteor. Rob has been sharing his data with me for a few weeks now and I asked him yesterday if it would be ok to make the information public. He agreed that making all of the information publicly available would greatly increase the chances of recovering the meteorites.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to all of the people that worked hard to help Rob develop this model including: Marc Fries, Dirk Ross, Elton Jones, Steve Arnold, Ruben Garcia, Eric Whicman, Mike Antonelli, Derik Bower, John Divelbiss, Safe Harbor Power Corp, York Water Company, Alison Kruse and everyone else that helped with this (lmk if I forgot about you and I’ll add you to the list).

Rob wanted me to make it clear that this data is an estimate based on the reports and analysis of the cameras and angles that captured the meteor. His 3d model is only as good as the field reports and data going in. Despite this disclaimer, Rob feels very confident about the model and his location and angle is consistent with numerous eye witness reports. In his words:

You have my okay on it. I would reiterate Marc’s comments that my modeling predictions are only as good as the information that goes into them. But that said, the current information is unusually good for a fireball; in particularly, I don’t know of any previous bolide that was serendipitously observed by a telescope.

Here is a Google Earth movie that illustrates the Mason Dixon Meteor’s 3D model.

Here are the coordinates Rob came up with for his model:

Latitude Longitude  Alt
——– ——— —–
39.29389 -76.53562 100.0
39.37501 -76.49368  90.0
39.45649 -76.45145  80.0
39.53833 -76.40893  70.0
39.62054 -76.36610  60.0
39.70311 -76.32297  50.0
39.78606 -76.27954  40.0
39.86938 -76.23580  30.0
39.95307 -76.19174  20.0
40.03714 -76.14737  10.0
40.12160 -76.10268   0.0

I will be posting detailed search maps as well as Marc Fries proposed strewn field map in the days to come.