Originally posted by at AMS website
Last night was a busy night for the AMS: 2 very bright fireball events occurred less than 6 hours apart.
Fireball over Germany: 45 reports from 4 countries
AMS first received 45 reports (so far) about of a slow green fireball seen above north Germany on Tuesday, April 16th 2019 around 21:50 Universal Time (23:50 local time – CEST). The event was mainly seen from Germany but reports also are sent from Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.
AMS Event #1774-2019 – Witness location and estimated ground trajectory
Trajectory
The preliminary 3D trajectory computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS* shows that the fireball was traveling from South East to North West and ended its flight right above Hamburg.
* through AMS partners: Arbeitskreis Meteore e.V. (D), the International Meteor Organization, Werkgroep Meteoren(NL), Vallendesterren (NL) and UKMON (UK).
AMS Event #1774-2019 – Estimated 3D trajectory
Video
AMS AllSky6 Camera operators André Knöfel from Lindenberg, Germany and Sirko Molau from Seysdorf, Germany caught the event on this cam (see video below). It is the only media sent to AMS about this event so far.
Fireball over Delaware: 325 reports from 12 states
AMS also received 325 reports so far about another bright and green fireball that happened over Delaware the same night at 02:57 Universal Time (10:57pm EDT). Reports was sent from Washington DC, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont and West Virginia.
AMS Event #1775-2019 – Witness location and estimated ground trajectory
Trajectory
The preliminary 3D trajectory computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS shows that the fireball was traveling from North to South and ended its flight in the Atlantic Ocean in front of Bethany Beach, DE. It means that if anything survived, it’s in the water.
AMS Event #1775-2019 – Estimated 3D trajectory
Video
Both AMS AllSky6 Camera operators Elizabeth Warner (MD) and Ed Abel Mathias (WV) caught the event:
Fireball, Meteorite…?
Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.
Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumb rule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.
Originally posted by at AMS website
