Fireball Events
The Grimsby Meteorite [25-Sept-2009]
Overview of the Event
At 9:03 pm on Friday night September 25, 2009 (01:03 UT Sept 26) seven all-sky cameras of Western's Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) recorded a brilliant fireball in the evening sky over the west end of Lake Ontario.
The fireball was seen widely by observers throughout southern Ontario and adjacent areas. The fireball was first detected by Western's camera systems at an altitude of 100km over Guelph moving southeastwards at 20.8 km/s. The meteoroid was initially the size of a child's tricycle. At its brightest, the fireball was approximately 100 times as bright as the full moon.
Composite photo [click to enlarge]
Composite all-sky camera image of the end of the fireball as seen from Hamilton (Camera #3, McMaster). Available below are movies of the event as seen by several of the SOMN cameras, as well as animations of the object's arrival at Earth. [click to enlarge]
Analysis of the all-sky camera records as well as data from Western's meteor radar and infrasound equipment indicates that this bright fireball was large enough to have dropped meteorites in a region south of Grimsby on the Niagara Peninsula, providing masses that may total as much as several kilograms.
