January 18, 2000
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| The big news of today was the gigantic flash that lit up Atlin
and areas as far away as Whitehorse. The flash was caused by a meteor (or
is it called meteorite when it falls to earth) and was much brighter than
daylight. I thought a transformer had blown up outside my window but did
not hear a noise. There was a strange noise that sounded like the roof
next door is dumping snow on my building. That could have been the sonic
boom so many people heard in the north.
The flash happened at 8:45 today and I took a series of pictures starting at 1:30 minutes after the flash That is image one here.
I used a Kodak DC 20 digital camera to take the pictures which are 493 X 373 pixels. Camera specifications are: Color - 24 bit, millions of color; lens - focus free; exposure - automatic program; shutter speed - 1/30 to 1/4000 sec; aperture - f/4 to f/11; sensitivity - equivalent to 800 to 1600 ISO. You may download and use these pictures. If you publish any please mention
this website.
NASA has published several pages of information on the meteor.
Another interesting link is:
|
As you can
see the vapour trail was actually red.
I took images as the trail changed and the last one above was taken 14
minutes after the first one. By then the vapour trail was very large.
By 18 minutes after
the flash only one part of the trail fit into the picture and 45 minutes
after the flash that part of the trail was still visible underneath the
clouds.
