While many people are getting set for the unique “blood red” total lunar eclipse tomorrow morning – it may be tough to impress one Wallaceburg woman, who saw something quite extraordinary in the sky recently.
“I was laying in bed and saw it out my bedroom window,” said Katey Beaudoin, whose room overlooks Bill’s Pizza in Wallaceburg.
“It looked like a shooting star only much larger… like the size of a glowing baseball falling from the sky.”
Beaudoin added: “It kept falling, longer then a shooting star would… until it fell behind the house and I couldn’t see it anymore. It was a bright, silver light. The same colour as a star, only much larger.”
Geoff Coulsen, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, told the Sydenham Current that the American Meteor Society reported “four large fireball events” over the United States on Sept. 23.
This is the same evening that Beaudoin told the Sydenahm Current about her sighting.
“Three of the events… all occurred within 1.5 hours of each other,” a report on the American Meteor Society website states. “It is rare that multiple significant fireball events occur and are reported to the AMS in the same evening. After analysis of the time, proximity of witnesses and pointing data gathered, it was determined that each event was unique.”
The American Meteor Society describes a fireball as essentially, a very bright meteor.
Here is a graphic, showing the different meteor terminology:
As for the total lunar eclipse taking place, it is set to be visible on Wednesday morning here in Chatham-Kent at 6:15 a.m.
Photo credit: Mike Lewinski
