Mike's Astro Photos

Tag: Midwest Fireball

Apr.21 2010

Ground Track for April 14th, 2010 Wisconsin Fireball

by , under Misc

Lots of finds are being made out in Wisconsin. At least ten have been reported so far and I’m sure there are more that haven’t been announced yet. This fireball event is a meteorite hunters dream come true. Everything worked out as perfectly as one could want: multiple cameras from different sides of the track captured direct sightings of the fireball, 1000s of witnesses saw it, three radar returns spanning more than 25 miles were captured. The radar returns alone told hunters exactly where to go and that is the main reason why meteorites were recovered 22 hours after the fall. For fun I plotted the track based on the radar data and two videos. For the videos I used the US Bank video from Milwaukee and the police dash cam video from the Howard County Sheriff.

Here are two pictures of the doppler radar data:

Wisconsin Meteor Doppler Radar Data - April 14, 2010

Wisconsin Meteor Doppler Radar Data - April 14, 2010

And here’s a close up:

Wisconsin Meteor Doppler Radar - April 14th, 2010

Wisconsin Meteor Doppler Radar - April 14th, 2010

For the videos, the first thing you have to do is figure out where they were taken from. I knew one video had the Milwaukee US Bank building in it. Using 3d buildings in google earth I was able to determine with a pretty good approximation where the first camera was. I then used the 3d buildings to line up the shot to determine the azimuth readings. Here’s a view of downtown Milwaukee where I think the camera was located.

US Bank Milwaukee Fireball - April 14, 2010

US Bank Milwaukee Fireball - April 14, 2010

For the second camera I don’t know the exact location so I just picked a random place. Using these three data sets and my interpretation of the witness reports I have plotted the ground track for the Wisconsin Meteor. This is certainly not exact, but I think it might be pretty close.

Wisconsin Fireball Ground Track - April 14, 2010

Wisconsin Fireball Ground Track - April 14, 2010

There are meteorites in and around the town of Milfin Wisconsin. Mike Farmer thinks there are thousands of them.

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Apr.17 2010

AMS Witness Reports For Midwest Fireball

by , under Misc

Here’s a map of the fireball observations reported to the The American Meteor Society. Over 150 people reported their sighting to the AMS. Thousands of reports have also been submitted to facebook and twitter.  Considering there were very nice radar returns and excellent video coverage and that multiple stones (i’ve heard 3) have already been found, the witness reports are far less important than in other falls. Its still interesting to see all of the reports plotted and how far this thing could be seen.

AMS Reports For Wisconsin Fireball

AMS Reports For Wisconsin Fireball

I’ve uploaded the Google Earth KMZ file for the AMS reports for the Wisconsin Meteor. To get this file to work you have to have Google Earth downloaded and installed on your computer. Once Google Earth is installed, simply download the link and it should automatically load up in Google Earth.

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Apr.17 2010

Another Wisconsin Meteorite Found

by , under Misc

A 131 gram Wisconsin Meteorite was recently found by Mike Farmer. Congrats Mike!

http://www.rocksfromspace.org/Farmer_Meteorite_Hunter.html

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Apr.16 2010

Wisconsin Meteorite Found

by , under Misc

The first meteorite from the Wisconsin Fireball was recovered less than 24 hours from the time of the fall. Check out the story on Universe Today.

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Apr.15 2010

Iowa Fireball April 14th, 2010 10:00 PM

by , under Misc

Hundreds of reports of a fireball in the sky above Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois are flooding news and police stations, blogs and social networking sites. A few videos have already been posted online:

Awesome Video of Iowa Fireball

Web Cam Fireball Capture

Traffic Camera

Information is still poring in on this one. It looks like there is already a lot of data and witnesses which makes the initial meteorite recovery outlook pretty good.

Here are a few news stories

http://addins.kwwl.com/blogs/weather/archives/8863
http://blogs.woodtv.com/2010/04/14/gigantic-meteor/
http://bit.ly/9YE7WS
http://ow.ly/1yFHQ

I’d guess there will be some meteorite hunters flying out to Iowa tomorrow.

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