Hello everyone.
I just wanted to share an exciting pre-dawn sighting from a few days ago.
I awoke early Saturday morning at our new home in southern Utah, to say
goodbye to my visiting brother. I stepped out onto the balcony and looked up
to see the Milky Way arching high overhead. The rosy glow of dawn was
creeping up over the red rock cliffs to the east and I spotted Jupiter a few
degrees above the horizon, with the Pleiades just above that. Not a bad way
to start the day. But then, just as my wife came out to look...
I turned to the north just in time to catch a brilliant fireball. It was
traveling roughly SW to NE, making a line from about Vega or northern
Hercules to the handle of the Big Dipper. It spanned about 20 degrees of sky
and was very bright white - several times brighter than Venus - leaving a
brief ion trail behind before turning orange and beginning to fragment. It
either burned up completely at that point, or broke apart as it continued in
dark flight. If anything reached the ground, I'd estimate it to be in the
San Rafael Swell area.
While oohing and ahhing over all that, I turned back to the east just a
moment later just as Venus began to rise over the cliffs of Capitol Reef. It
was orange, like a rising full moon, and grew larger as it continued coming
into view. I watched it detach from the cliff and begin to rise, first in
arc-minutes and then degrees, brightening all the while. I finally went
inside to make sure my brother was up and tell him what I'd just seen. What
an amazing morning. I'll remember it always.
Linton
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