Meteor over South Africa 21 November 2009

Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Marc in Personal

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Meteor Shower - Wikipedia

UPDATED: I have posted 2 VIDEOS of from Johannesburg of the meteor. Check out the post here -> http://www.marcforrest.com/2009/11/24/video-of-meteor-over-gauteng-21-november/

Update: Christo Van Graan also sent me a video taken from his Security camera’s in the Limpopo Province -> http://www.marcforrest.com/2009/11/25/meteor-video-from-limpopo-province-211109/

On Saturday evening, 21 November, my wife and I were driving home on the N2 near Ballito, from my year-end function, at about 22:30. suddenly the whole sky lit up to a greenish/blueish colour. Soon after that there was flash that flew over our heads. It kinda looked like a lightning blot, but there weren’t any clouds in the sky.

I immediately jumped onto twitter, and found that we weren’t the only ones to see this. It sounded like it was a lot brighter in over Johannesburg & Centurion, with a couple of people even saying they may have thought it had reached the ground as well. After checking around, it looked like what we saw was a rather rare occurrence, in that a we saw a meteor in the sky that was close to earth. I have never seen anything like this, and it was phenomenal.

After doing a bit more investigation, in the morning, it sound like it didn’t actually hit the ground, as meteors generally burn up as they hit the earths atmosphere.It also looks like it could be part the Leonid shower which is meteoroid dust from the tail of Halley’s Comet! Although, that may not be 100% correct, as this was scheduled to happen on the 17th of November.

The Weather Service has a blog post about it here, where a couple of people have commented about this. The Times also has an article on with comment from the guys at the Johannesburg planetarium. So far, it doesn’t seem anyone has pictures of this rare occurrence, but hopefully we can get lucky, and get a similar picture to that of a Utah surveillance camera that picked up a meteor shower in Utah last week. Wikipedia also has a very interesting read about Meteor Showers

Did you see the Meteor on Saturday night ? If you did leave a comment, if anyone has pictures let me know, and I will gladly put them up :)

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67 Responses to “Meteor over South Africa 21 November 2009”

Johann & Lynette

24. Nov, 2009

Hi, we were in Johannesburg at the time of the sighting, it was too quick to take a photo though. Allmost looked like thunder. My brother who was in Rustenburg also saw the same light and mentioned it to me on Monday morning. Will be interesting to see what it actually was. Rumours says, it fell in Botswana and they were still looking into it. But like I said, ii’s only a Rumour….
Carolyn

25. Nov, 2009

We were in the bush near Hoedspruit when we saw the flash of light. I was expecting thunder but there was only silence. We started to speculate about what it could have been. Then, on our return to Jo’Burg on Monday we heard the 15h30 news of the light being caused by a meteor. And to think I was looing for meteors whenever the sky cleared!!
Fernando

25. Nov, 2009

Hi, i was 40km from Musina in the Limpopo that night, just a few minutues past 11, a bright white flash appeared from the sky, as the light disapeared i saw a huge red/orange flame speeding across the sky and about 5 – 7 minutues later there was a disruption in the ground, the windows and doors of the chalets we stayed in was shaking. it really felt like a little earthqauke.
Teri

25. Nov, 2009

hi, i live in pretoria and saw a big flash of light in the sky and after peeking out the window saw bright orange sky towards the west. had no idea that it was a meteor, only found out next morning on radio 702. was amazing.
Shelley Tyler

25. Nov, 2009

Hi

I am from Cape Town and happened to be at a wedding in Johannesburg on the evening of the 21st and also saw it from the balcony at the Everwood Country Estate Muldersdrift.

Would be interesting to hear what it was. Have heard that it was a satellite that was launched??
Midge Wood

25. Nov, 2009

Myself & seven guests were at Rock Camp in Mashatu, Tuli Block in Botswana from 19th Nov to 24th Nov 2009. After our Game Drive and a braai on Saturday night the 21st, we were outside playing a bird CD calling the Pearl Spotted Owl. There was myself, my daughter, her boyfriend, my brother-in-law & two of the resident Game Rangers.

I was walking down a path to a dead Leadwood tree where I know the Owls like to perch. I was walking due south,when suddenly I saw the horison light up almost as if the sun was rising. Within a second or two the whole sky had litten up, as if daylight. It then momentarily turned an orange hue and went back to total darkness. The bush went into a deathly silence. No frogs, insects or birds. A deathly silence.

We were all stunned and did not totally understand what exactly had happened. We all admitted to having goose bumps but went about our task at hand, looking for the Pearl Spotted Owl, which by now were all around us in the trees.

I realised that something desperately unusual had happened and looked at my watch. It was 10h50 in the night.

About 5 to 10 minutes later, as I was entering the main building of Rock Camp, there was the most amazing explosion in the sky. It sounded like nothing I have ever heard before.

Two of the people with me were facing North when the sky lit up and they both said that they saw a red streak in the sky, very wide going south to north before the darkness returned.

My name is Midge Wood and my Cell No 082 920 9782. If there are any cosmic experts out there that would like to talk to us about what we experienced, please feel free.
Johannes Lebogang

26. Nov, 2009

on the 21 November 2009 in Mpumalanga, Vaalbank (Libangeni) for 2-3 Minutes the sky turned blue – green colour around 22H32. I never saw sumthing like dat in my life.
Janette Potgieter

26. Nov, 2009

in the Centurion area we were all standing outside and saw this greenish light..some guy thinking its the end of the world hehe and me telling them its a green flair someone shooted up in the ski..but yes this was very beautiful..its really looked like a flair..this green coming down and exploded and making a bright light over the area..never seen something this amazing.. :)
Zandile Hlatshwayo

26. Nov, 2009

I was @ work and it was amazing the speed the sound and the brightness, i knew it was not a shooting star and immediately i waited to hear that something bad had happened but found out a few hours later that it was a meteor, it was beautiful if you saw it you definitely know what im talking about, we had a few minutes of daylight again @ that hour…
brian

26. Nov, 2009

Hi, I am an astronomer trying to determine the path of this meteor. I would like to ask all the people who actually saw the meteor (not behind clouds) to let me know where exactly they were, whether the meteor was east or west of them, roughly its altitude (“very low”, “about 30 deg”, “about 60 deg”, “almost overhead”) and whether they heard or felt an explosion or shock wave. please reply to brian.fraser@macsteel.co.za
Rordon

26. Nov, 2009

As I was out on Saturday night I missed but our CCTV caught the effects on a number of cameras. The best of which we have published on our front page for others to enjoy. Visit http://www.digicell.co.za the view is from the garden, camera faces roughly north and location is Midrand
Rendani Nevhulaudzi

27. Nov, 2009

I was with a my girlfriend around, going to Sunnyside to pick up some, then all of sudden i saw the sky changed to blue then red,

I dint know what was happen because it happen so quick, but we i knew something was wrong
Carla Kennedy

02. Dec, 2009

Hi. My husband and I witnessed this meteor in the US. We are in Chicopee Ma. which is in the western part of the state. It occurred on Sat night here around 5:45 pm (16.45) We were having a campfire in the back yard and it seemed to fly right over our heads (really low). It was amazing!
PS to Brian the astronomer, We heard nothing but it was right over head and very low.
Carla Kennedy

02. Dec, 2009

I’m sorry , I did miscalculate the maritime hours. The sighting my husband and I witnessed was actually 17:45. Sorry for the confusion!
Nick Ligege

04. Dec, 2009

Hi I live in Pretoria, also saw it on Saturday. I had never seen anything like that in my life, I actually thought SA was under attack, but then again who would bomb us, we are good people ….
Kendall

13. Dec, 2009

Stay in Pretoria East. Never saw anything, only heard about it a week later…..

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