I got this picture from my wife today with the text:

“Mobile Meteor Headquarters?”

Mobile Meteor Headquarters

This was kind of a surprise. Thanks for the support honey! This should work, but we’ll need to paint it black and air brush a Darth Vadar on there

Satellite Imager

I continued my discussions with the satellite imagery company today and basically said: “what is it going to take to get new pictures of the target area in Lancaster quickly?” The sales guy said:

“Honestly it is a very very very random thing to have data from one day before you need it.  A satellite can only see a given location about every five days; for every location it can see, it can only image well less than 1% of the total area.  If you put this all together, you have about a 0.1% chance of getting an image of any given location inside the US in one year.”

With that being said, what are the chances that you would have the whole requested area photographed 1 day before the requested date!? 0.1% / 365 =

1 in 2.73972603 × 10^-6????? = IMPOSSIBLE!

What are the chances of taking a picture of a fireball meteor through a telescope?

IMPOSSIBLE!

What are the chances of a jack ass backyard astronomer turned meteorite hunter finding meteorites in the cornfields of Amish Pennsylvania?

IMPOSSIBLE!

I see a theme developing here.

Lancaster Corn Maze - Great Fun For the Family!

The July 5th images are incredible and that is a done deal, but I need images after July 6th. If I can find them I will have a perfect before and after comparison. I asked the guy if he could expedite my request if I paid a little more $$$. He said:

“You can pay more for higher priority but typically it is weather that is more important.  You might get lucky and get the data in one week with a new collection – you might get unlucky and not get it in 1 year.  There is no way to control this.  You could pay for rush which gives you the next access over the location, but if the data has 100% cloud cover you still have to pay $10,000!!!”

Regarding magnetic anomaly surveys he said:

“Magnetic sensors exist but is costs about $20,000 to put one up on an airplane and survey an area.”

My meteorite advisers have told me that a magnetic survey of this sort would only detect iron meteorites and not the more common types of meteorite. They also said the mass would have to be 1 ton to get picked up on a magnetic anomaly survey. In essence they have told me there is no chance of a magnetic survey picking up meteorites.

I asked this satellite guy to tell me all of his competitors so I could ask them if they had more recent photos, he said:

“I work with all high resolution color satellites (i.e. 80-cm resolution or better) that exist in the world.  You are welcome to check with other resellers but at this time there is no data over this location.  We are a top 3 reseller in the US market and I assure you that what I am telling you is the truth.”

Bell Helicopter

Personally, despite what the meteorite experts tell me, I think having full satellite imagery over the target area one day before the event happened has some value… well above and beyond the data available on google earth. (the smartest people in the world disagree with me on this).

I believe comparing this ‘before’ data to fresh data will have value. If nothing results from it, it is one less thing I have to think about or consider. If I didn’t do it I would second guess myself to death.

Simultaneously to the satellite information requests I contacted Lancaster Helicopter about doing an aerial survey of the area. They are trained in this art and their location is less than 2 miles away from the target area (go figure). I have contracted them to record roughly 50 square kilometers, this is about 2x the area Rob Matson and Marc Fries have targeted. The survey should take place in 1.5 weeks.

MTB - Best Bank In Maryland & Pennsylvania

I had a meeting today with a few VPs from M&T Bank. The meeting had nothing to do with the meteor, but they were following the story and of course it came up in conversation. I told them they could sponsor the Mason Dixon Meteor, they could put a MTB magnet on the helicopter when we survey the area. They were down with it. It will probably happen.Thanks Michele!

I blew out my back last night setting up my telescope. The last time I had turned the thing on was 7/11 (another cosmic number (love them big bites)). My back is killing me right now. There is no way I’m making it out to the field this weekend. No matter, I’m focusing on the intelligence war right now. I think the back injury is a sign from God telling me to slow down.

I contacted a commercial satellite company and asked them if they had recent images of the Mason Dixon Meteor estimated crash area. I gave them the coordinates and told them I needed images that were taken on or after July 6th (the day the meteor crashed). They wrote me back and said they had images that were taken on July 5th! That is a very weird coincidence. I can’t believe they missed it by one day. At the same time, I think this could be a sign and potentially very valuable. If I could find another satellite imagery company that happened to have images from after July 6th I would have super fresh before and after photos. If there was any sort of impact crater (which is possible with a basket ball sized meteorite that still has some cosmic velocity) it might show up on these photos.

I’m ordering the July 5th photos so I have them as they will still provide me with value. I can also do a custom shoot from the satellite but they are saying it will take 1-2 months to acquire. If there were visible signs there is a much greater chance they would be gone in another 2 months, plus I can’t wait that long.

If you know of any good custom satellite image companies please let me know through a comment.

I got an email today from a meteorite enthusiast named George. George disputed the authenticity of my meteor picture. He suggested the following at the conclusion of a lengthy unresolved debate.

My suggestion though is to not use your photo for any source of finding a strewnfield. I think you would have better luck in the long run.

When I got home I emailed Dirk Ross (Tokyo) from Lunar Meteorite Hunters Blog and asked him to give me a call. Dirk has been helping me out with the meteorite hunt and he really knows his stuff. I told Dirk about the email exchange I had with George and he told me that when my picture first surfaced it was immediately scrutinized. There were dozens of emails on the meteorite list with the subject “Astro Mike”. All of the hardcore meteorite dudes were debating whether or not my picture was really a meteor and not something else (like a plane). There were basically two camps: the believers and the doubters. Because the opinion was initially disputed the trajectory experts were not considering the data obtained from my picture at all. Dirk Ross was one of these meteor trajectory wizards and he plotted an impact zone days after the fall. Dirk with the help of Elton Jones and others plotted the trajectory estimate and impact zone using only the York Water meteor video and eye witness reports.

Unfortunately no one listened to Dirk and instead they went with a ‘due east’ trajectory past York. This resulted in 100s of lost video recordings of the meteor. The city of Lancaster alone apparently recently installed a security system that has cameras on every street corner in the city (thanks for letting me know this M Gaines). Security video recordings are usually only saved for 7 days and then overwritten. The ground work to look for security cameras was focused in the York area. No security videos were ever recovered from Lancaster. No matter, two new videos did surface: Safe Harbor and the Pittsburgh fireball video.  The Pittsburgh video (also found by Dirk), shows 3 stars and the planet Jupiter. This stellar information in combination with my stellar picture and the York Water Fireball Video and Safe Harbor videos gave Rob Matson and Marc Fries abnormally good data for a fireball trajectory.

Here is the kicker: Dirk Ross’s initial impact point is roughly 10 miles from the impact point Marc Fries and Rob Matson calculated using ALL of the video evidence. Dirk, that is pretty darn good.

George thanks for doubting my picture. Looking at Dirk’s data makes me feel extra special confident about the location we are working in right now. I wouldn’t have run into this new data if we hadn’t had our email debate.

Here are the Google Earth maps that show both Dirk Ross’s projection (using only York and eye witnesses) and Rob Matson/Marc Fries projection (using all available data).

Dirk Ross vs Rob Matson & Marc Fries (click to enlarge)

Dirk Ross vs Rob Matson & Marc Fries (click to enlarge)

Ever since this meteor thing started I have been having dreams about meteors. They aren’t always the same dream, they seem to be different. I wake up and say wow that was a cool dream but I can never remember them. I can only remember one meteor dream I’ve had and that’s because I really thought it through and played it back in my head a few times right after I woke up. I’m running through a field with my wife and kids and there are giant meteors falling from the sky and hitting the ground all around us.  We are running to get away from being hit, I’m scared. I remember seeing a 6 foot tall meteor lying on the ground and thinking get me the hell out of here — I don’t want anything to do with that!

I headed up to search zone orange after work tonight and a friend of mine sent me a text that said:

I had a dream early this morning around 4:am. We found a piece of the meteor. All I can remember is it was near a fence just off a busy road. Crazy right?

Needless to say I was looking at fences as I patrolled all the roads in the search area.

Bird in Hand Search Zones

I have cut up the entire search area into 5 zones: green, yellow, blue, orange and red. The areas are primarly based on public street boundaries and logical lines along the path of the meteor between the 10km and 5km altitudes. East of the trajectory line are zones that encompass areas suggested by Marc Fries to have meteorites of various sizes based on weight.  Smaller sized meteorites would have blown farther east while larger rocks would be closer to the trajectory line, but still east of it. I have included zones south and west of the lines as there is a margin of error in the data we have and it is important to cover areas on both sides of the trajectory to compensate for inaccuracies of the data provided. Marc and Rob stressed to me that these areas are estimates based on the data we have about this thing. They are not exact, but rather the best information we have to go on at this point in time. Special thanks to Marc Fries for developing the dark flight model. Marc I am in awe of your kung fu skillz.

Currently the highest priority zones are red and orange. I will be posting more detailed annotated maps as soon as I have the time to put them together.

10kg search area landmark

I only had a couple of hours to search tonight so I went right to the orange zone where the largest rocks (if there are any) would most likely be found. Needless to say I didn’t find any, but I did have a great talk with the land owner and he let me search right there on the spot. He said I could come back as much as needed so long as I respected the land and stayed out of the crop areas. He said I could search those in 3 months when the harvest was completed.

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.

A new video of the PA Fireball has surfaced. That makes 3! The authenticity of this video has yet to be confirmed, but initial reports/analysis are looking positive.

Jupiter with halo July 29, 2009

The stars tonight were bright. The moon set early and some rain came briefly through and then it was perfect. I haven’t seen it this dark in a long while. Since this meteor thing started I’ve only used my scope two times.

Tonight I was reworking the meteor trajectory taking into consideration data from the new video tape and I took a break to go outside. The sky was so dark I could see the Milky Way plain as day. I decided to take a few tripod shots and enjoy the night a little.  The Milk Way shots didn’t quite work out but I got this one of Jupiter that is kind of cool. The halo around the planet is actually an optical anomaly caused I think by dew on my camera lens. Gives it an interesting effect.

As for the meteor, now that some analysis of the new tape has come in we believe we have located a new terminus for the meteor that is 1-2 miles north of the Safe Harbor dam. I have spoken to other meteorite hunters and reliable experts who believe there could be 40,000 grams of meteorite rock near the terminus point. Based on my picture and historical meteorite fall data several different experts believe there could be 3 10,000 gram rocks sitting in a corn field somewhere.

Quarryville July 28, 2009

Our NASA source analyzed the new video footage and told me he recalculated his trajectory based on the new data and his new terminus point is 20k west of his original location. We are working on a new strewn field map so that we can have a plan of attack this Saturday when we go out again. Prior to this new data the estimated strewn field was in Quarryville. When I was in Quarryville, I spoke to an Amish farmer who said his farm hand had witnessed the event and felt that it was so close he ducked down when it flew over. The boy claims to have seen the meteor crash into the ground. The boy’s location was 5 miles north of the Quarryville farm I was visiting. I haven’t calculated this account into my analysis yet, but with a quick eye up it looks possible.

Amish Tractor

I have reworked my line of site analysis of all locations and factored in the new Safe Harbor data. I believe my new trajectory and terminus point are better than they have ever been, its my best guess but it is still just a guess. I have some work to do on the meteor path before I publish it here, especially considering my last two guess were way wrong. With the new data and help I’m getting I’m feeling much better about this new projection. I have to do another lego shadow analysis before I can know for sure. I will post an updated map with meteor path and estimated terminus point tomorrow.

Safe Harbor Water Power Corp July 25, 2009

Earlier last week I was reviewing the estimated meteor path on google earth and noticed the Safe Harbor Dam & power plant was very close to the current trajectory. I wrote the dam and asked them to review their security tapes from that night. They were nice enough to review and found two tapes that captured a light flare at 1:04:45 AM. The manager copied the tapes for me and I picked them up yesterday. After viewing the tapes on sight I surveyed the dam and camera locations.

I do not have permission to publish the videos yet, but if you are interested in seeing them you can email me and I can send you the files privately. The videos do not show the main body, but they do show an awful lot of light and some distinct moving shadows that can be tracked for about 4-5 frames.

After reviewing the videos and site I have currently made the following conclusions based on this new information:1) the meteor flew very close to the Safe Harbor Water Power Corp 2) the meteor flew most likely on the southern side of the plant. 3) The meteor made it across the Susquehanna. 4) The meteor was visible for  3 1/2-4 seconds.

I believe if the right people look at the video and examine the shadows on the ground they will be able to make some conclusions about the location of the meteor at that moment and the direction it was traveling. If you want to review the video please leave me a comment or send me an email.

While I was at the dam I met up with Mike O’Neil and John Stevenson, two graduate students from John’s Hopkins who are working on the meteor search as part of a project with the applied physics department. Mike and John were incredibly helpful in surveying the power plant as well as providing lots of analysis and insight into the event, the trajectory and possible crash site. Many thanks to Mike and John, I look forward to reading your reports.

John and me at York Water Company (39 55.227N 76 44.854W)

After the Safe Harbor survey we decided to go back to the location of the first video tape — York Water Company. None of us had personally been there yet. We had access to the data from that site and were under the belief that the meteor was on a eastern trajectory from that point, but we all wanted to see the site first hand so we could get a better idea about where this thing was going.  I had the coordinates already so we plugged them into the GPS and headed over there. It took us a few minutes to locate the camera (its pretty sneaky). The camera is mounted under the silver electric box in the picture to the left, its the circle underneath. It took us a few minutes to figure that out but we had all remembered seeing that box posted in a previous picture and by looking at the site we eventually put two and two together.

John and Mike both work for a company that makes GPS devices and software so they are pretty knowledgeable about surveying sites and engineering in general. They explained to me the best way to determine the line of sight (LOS) and direction is to look for big objects on the ground and then find those objects in satalite photos like google earth or microsoft bing. Then use the NSEW directional markings in the satellite photo relative to the objects on the ground and not a compass, the sun or some other mechanism to evaluate the LOS direction.

York Water Company Camera Line Of Site (LOS)

As you can see in this picture, the camera is roughly parallel to the barbed wire security fence on the left. Prior to talking to John and Mike I was under the belief the meteor was traveling due east from the York County video (based on information from other sources) but was still having trouble accepting this, because I saw it in Freeland 20 miles south. This is what Mike wrote me today regarding the trajectory relative to York.

Possible meteor path across Safe Harbor

This video is not REAL! Its just a simulation. A few nights after the meteor flew over I setup a CSI re-enactment of the event. I put my scope at the location where I believe the picture was taken the night before. I used a laser to pinpoint where in the sky my scope was pointing. (the accuracy of the position may be flawed, but this video is just meant to illustrate what it may have looked like.)

This is a simulation / best guess. Please if you are a meteor expert and have criticism of this simulation please send it to me so we can make improvements to the video.

Special thanks to Doctor Vincent Perlerin and his associates from Paris for analyzing the pictures and working on this video. Vincent you are the man!

I have been passing around this flier to churches, fire stations, police stations, gas stations, liquor stores, community centers and golf courses in the Wrightsville area of PA. If you want to download the PDF, print it out and pass it around please do so. Just tell people you work with Mike Hankey and are trying to raise awareness about the meteor. Its a great ice breaker when talking to locals.

PDF OF FLIER FOR LANDOWNERS AND RESIDENTS

This is a press release that Steve Arnold from the discovery/science channel just sent out on the local news contacts.

I talked to a police officer and an ambulance driver in wrightville yesterday. I think both of these people witnessed contact with the ground. The ambulance driver described it as “It was blue and then it changed colors. It was like when a transformer blows up.” The police office said he saw it thru his rear view mirror, but that it didn’t fly anywhere, “Just lit up and then went away”. Neither of these people heard the sonic boom, which suggests the object was going <600 MPH when they saw it. I’m going to be meeting them again at the exact location so we can determine directions and line of site. Both of these witnesses were within a couple miles of each other.

——–FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE———–

PA Meteor Bulls Eye Located
from Steve Arnold

NOTES:
Target area narrowed
Scientist uses photo and video to plot trajectory
“Blip” seen on Doppler Radar image
Call for locals to look for meteorites
What to look for
Steve Arnold has returned home to Arkansas but still is monitoring, and might return
Amateur astro-photographer Mike Hankey joins the search spear pointing efforts on the ground
Contact info at bottom

Details:
Using both the video footage from the York Water Company security videos and the still photo captured by Mike Hankey telescope in Freeland, Maryland, and field data gathered by professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold, scientist Rob Matson has narrowed down the zone where fragments of the meteorite should be located.

The photo data helps us locate where the fireball burned out, but the meteorites would still be spread out over an area of probably 1 mile wide by 5 miles long, possibly even longer.  The angle of decent indicates the pieces might not be spread out too far.
The meteorite will carry a little further beyond the point the light phenomenon ceased, but this gives us a lot smaller target area to focus on.
The Susquehanna River cuts through the zone near Pequea.

Rob Matson, is space scientist/aerospace engineer specializing in simulation and modeling of infrared sensors and phenomenology. On the hobby (i.e. unpaid) side, I’m an amateur astronomer focused on the discovery of comets, asteroids and meteorites.  Located in Seal Beach, CA, Matson is available for interviews at XXX-XXX-XXXX.
Matson states:  “My best estimate at the moment is that meteorites should be found somewhere in the region bounded by Pequea, Colemanville, Martic
Forge, Marticville, Holtwood, Bethesda (PA of course), and Rawlinsville. The west side of the Susquehanna isn’t ruled out, but I would strongly favor the east side.”

Locals in the area need to look down!  Odds are strongly in favor of notified locals finding pieces of the meteorite over the chances even professional meteorite hunters would have.  Walking the dog, mowing the grass, walking across parking lots, walking along the sides of the roads, local are encouraged to look for smooth, dark black rocks.  These rocks will be heavier than other rocks of their size, and should attract a strong magnet (not a weak refrigerator magnet).  They will NOT be porous like lave.  They should have rounded corners, often oblong, shaped like a potato.  They can be any size from pea sized to basketball sized or larger.  Fist sized or larger can punch a hole in the ground, but smaller ones will often dent the ground and sometimes bounce.   If there is a naturally broken face, those edges can be sharp, with the interior usually a light cement looking gray color.

Meteorites do not have any radiation, but oils on your hand could do some minor damage.  Ideally, picking it up should be done with a plastic baggy or a gloved hand, but the important thing is to get them pick them up. Any rocks with a black smooth surface, that are attracted by a magnet should be checked out by an expert. Once the first specimen is found, then determining where the others are will be much easier.

Hankey’s photo revealed at least 6 fragments, and there is a possibility for hundreds of stones if there was a late break up, as often is the case.

Arnold is encouraged that meteorites can and will be found. Meteorites belong to private property owners, so any would be hunters must get permission to hunt and remove anything before going on to private property to search. Any finds should be reported to Steve Arnold at www.MeteoriteMen.com any finds will be reported by Steve back to the media (if the media outlets want to sort through the good and bad leads, by all means they can direct their own reader/viewer to contact them directly on any possible find instead of Steve.)

This is a photochop to all you haters on the meteorite list!

Amateur Astro-Photographer Mike Hankey has become an amateur meteorite hunter.  “He has been bitten by the meteorite bug pretty hard”  commented Arnold.  “He has a passion to personally recover at least one of the rocks his camera captured, and I don’t think he is going to stop until he gets one.”
Hankey has printed up flyers and with Arnold and Matson’s new data, he is heading to the target zone today to help spread the word.
Arnold has returned to his home in Arkansas but is still actively fielding reports and working to get the word out to people in the area.  If any significant developments occur, Arnold will be back in the area soon to continue his work and filming for his TV show Meteorite Men on Science Channel.
Arnold is still interested in video footage of the fall from any security cameras in the area.  At this time, further eye witnessed reports are not needed.
Meteorite Men, co-staring Steve Arnold and his hunting partner Geoff Notkin of Tucson, AZ airs on Science Channel 4 times this week:  July 15, 16 and 17

Check listings here:
http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=48.15725.126184.36729.1

Steve Arnold can be reached at meteorhntr@aol.com and  www.MeteoriteMen.com
Mike Hankey can be reached at mike@nerd.com and www.mikesastrophotos.com
Rob Matson can be reached at ROBERT.D.MATSON@saic.com

The #1 Astronomy Magazine in the world!

Skyandtelescope.com wrote an article about the Mason Dixon meteor and my picture.

I’m working them to publish the picture and write up a story about the meteorite hunt. We’ll see. If I find some of these meteorite rocks I’d say its a no-brainer for them to publish a story. Even if we don’t find the rocks, this is still a great story S&T… Has any astro-photographer every captured an image of a fireball meteor thru a telscope? I’ve searched google images for hours and haven’t been able to find one yet.

Thanks Kelly! Great article.

Leading Near Earth Asteroid Astronomers

Forwarded conversation
Subject: “Fireball” Image
————————

From: Richard Kowalski
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:00 AM
To: Mike Hankey
Cc: Kelly Beatty

Hello,

Kelly Beatty gave me your address.

I would like to inspect your image of the recent fireball a little more closely. I’m not entirely convinced that the object you captured is the fireball, but I believe that a closer examination of the original frame will be informative. Would it be possible for you to send me the original, unprocessed frame?

I will not redistribute or use the image in any way other than a close inspection on my computer and I will delete the image once I have finished my examination.

Thanks for considering my request.

—
Richard Kowalski
Catalina Sky Survey
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

———-
From: Mike Hankey
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:15 AM
To: Richard Kowalski

yes i can send it to you. the main image is over 7 megs… so might be a bit big for email.

what makes you think it might not be the fireball. what would you suggest that it is?

numerous meteor experts have pointed out all sorts of things about the picture that indicate it is a meteor. Including fragments of meteorites that are breaking away from the main body.

I don’t have any problems having you confirm, i’m just interested to know what else you think it could be?

Personally i know it is because I heard the boom and the timing was exact. I also know its not a hoax / fake, but I would be happy to have that proved, cause i don’t expect the scientific community to ‘just trust me’.

Let me figure out how i’m gonna get you the file cause its pretty big.

Are you a professor, phd, astronomer? Can you tell me a little more about yourself?

I’m actively trying to locate the fragments, if you have any info / data on the trajectory that you could give me that would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

———-
From: Mike Hankey
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:31 AM
To: Richard Kowalski

here’s an article from a meteorite expert that describes a lot of things about the picture. i’m uploading the pic now to my site. i’ll send you the url once its up there.

http://meteoriteblog.com/

———-
From: Mike Hankey
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:42 AM
To: Richard Kowalski

Here is the link to the raw image file:

[link removed / leave a comment if you would like to review the RAW file]

I’m very interested to know why you have some doubt about the current picture. I’m also interested to hear your analysis after you’ve looked at the picture.

The picture is 100% real. If its not the fireball what else could it be? Its certainly not a firefly, or a plane. And the timing is exact. I heard and felt the sonic boom and this happened at the same exact time the picture was taken.

Thanks looking forward to your reply.

——————-

From: Richard Kowalski
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:48 AM
To: Mike Hankey

Hi Mike,

I am an astronomer with the Catalina Sky Survey. We search for Near Earth Asteroids and are the most productive survey in that field. I am also the discoverer of 2008 TC3, the first object to be discovered in space and then impacting on earth. That happened last October.

Here is our website:

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/

I certainly do not think that the image is “fake” or hoaxed, but my original suspicion was that the object you imaged was an aircraft. We often see aircraft, satellites and meteors in our images. On an average night we examining literally a thousand images or more, so I am probably more experienced looking at these types of images than any other person who has contacted you about your image.

I have often seen images that have a combination of the effects that is visible in your image, and they usually turn out to be aircraft. However, on examining the versions of your image much more closely, I am starting to think I may be mistaken and you actually did catch this object soon after it broke up, but was rapidly fading.

I see you have sent me the url. I will download the image shortly and let you know what I think as soon as I have finished a closer examination.

I really do appreciate you providing this image file for me and am very glad to see you use RAW. I have a 20D and love it. I’m in the process of replacing the shutter, which gave out after 90,000 exposures.

Talk to you soon.

Thanks! Mike Hankey wrote:

———-
From: Richard Kowalski
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 1:00 AM
To: Mike Hankey

Hey Mike,

I’m convinced. You have an image of the fireball! Congrats. Great catch!

What I wanted to see was the variation in the brightness of the trails at full resolution, both in pixels and bit depth. I’m curious though if the camera is set to the correct time?

The file has the time 12:03:51am embedded in it and I’d just like to confirm if that is correct of if it is off by any amount and if so by how much.

Thanks again for allowing me to examine your original data. I very much appreciate that!

Cheers and keep up the good work! Mike Hankey wrote:

———-
From: Mike Hankey
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 1:12 AM
To: Richard Kowalski

Thanks Richard,

Congratulations on TC3 that sounds fascinating. I will read up about that and your work. Please work very hard at your job, I don’t want earth to get hit by a giant asteroid!

My first thought was it was a plane too, when I initially looked at the picture on the camera view finder. That screen is really small and hard to tell and I remember thinking, that’s way to big for a plane, but I chalked it up as some type of problem in the shot. I’ve shot lots of plane trails and they are usually about 1 pixel wide.

I just got your response! Thanks that is great.

I noticed the time thing too, but the file system is 12:06. So that means the elapsed time should have be 12:03:51-12:06:51 (+1 for DLS). I think the camera is not adjusted for daylight savings time. Its off by 1 hour. I’m not sure if the time stamp is at the beginning of the photo or the end. I’m also not sure how off the time is on the camera but I will check.

Would you mind if I posted our email thread on my site? This is a great thrill to hear from someone as important as you and I’d love to post your validation of the picture.

Thanks,

Mike

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From: Richard Kowalski
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 1:00 AM
To: Mike Hankey

Cheers and keep up the good work!

———-
From: Richard Kowalski
Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 2:50 AM
To: Mike Hankey

Mike,
Please feel free to post my comments on your blog.

I was very adamant that your image was an aircraft passing through the field on the Meteorite List. Meteorites are a hobby for me, so there are plenty of other more knowledgeable people there. However, I found that I had questions about my own ID and wanted to make sure I did not disseminate incorrect information there. There are a large number of meteorite hunters who are trying to determine where the strewn field for this fall should be and I did not want to provide incorrect information or assessment either way. The more high quality information available, the more likely fragments will be recovered.

Again, thank you for letting me examine your data and congrats.

Richard

Yesterday was a great day! In addition to being my first day as a meteorite hunter I also had my pictured published on the first page of the Baltimore Sun and the York Daily Record. I also recorded an interview with the local Baltimore ABC news that aired at 5:30 and again at 11.

Here is a link to the story and video on the ABC2 news website:

ABC2 News story about Mason Dixon Meteor

Special thanks to Joce Sterman of ABC news. She made me feel very comfortable, asked great questions and was very knowledgeable about meteorites and this story.

Also special thanks to Frank Roylance of the Baltimore Sun. Frank your story sent chills up my spine. I bought about 50 copies of the sun yesterday. Can I order more. I’d like to put in an order for 1000 copies please. Who do I contact at the sun about that?

I have a lot of cool things in the pipe line: new scientific data relating to the trajectory, simulated pictures of the night sky as the meteor flew thru it and a simulated video. I’m also filming a documentary about the hunt for the Mason Dixon Meteor. Stay tuned!