Meteor hunt isn't over yet
The search for any fragments of last Monday's fireball meteor is continuing, although not as intensely as last week. I received the following email on Saturday from Steve "Meteorite Man" Arnold:
"Hello Frank,
" A personal situation brought me back to Arkansas today. I hope to get back there very soon.
"I am still fielding reports, a good one from Lancaster, and West Philly, also a great one from NJ.
"Also, the York Water Co. had a second video (that I haven't seen, but Jeff gave me a very detailed description) that could put the end of the fireball at the south side of Lancaster. But no new videos, after all this effort.
"I actually did some door-knocking yesterday [Friday] walking into businesses with cameras facing the right way, with no luck.
"I would love to zero in on a tight area before encouraging locals to devote time looking, but the peak of interest will be coming down pretty quick, I would guess.
"But NBC's 'Meteor' 4-part mini-series starring Jason "George Castanza" Alexander starts tomorrow [Sunday] through Wednesday, and 'Meteorite Men' airs four times this next week over on Science Channel, so who knows?
"It is a bit tough as much of the interest is down your way, and the rocks, no doubt, are up in Penn.
"Hey, there is a new debate now that the still photo of [Mike] Hankey's (above) is of a jet and not the meteor. It will be interesting to see how that plays out, especially with Sky and Telescope wanting to run it. Without that data my zone probably doesn't change too much, but it makes soime of it a bit more fuzzy ... - Steve"
And this morning, I received the following additional information from Arnold:
"A 'rocket scientist' type friend of mine was able to crunch the numbers and get them to me about 3am today. He has taken both the Hankey photo and the YWC video and extrapolated a real tight fall zone."
For more astro photos by Mike Hankey, visit: mikesastrophotos.com He's also posted a letter from Richard Kowalski, at the University of Arizona, a leading asteroid hunter who had initially expressed doubts that Mike had photographed the meteor. But he's now convinced it's the real deal.
The hunt continues ...
Comments
USA Today gave “Meteor” a pretty scathing 1-star review. So I thought to myself, “How bad could it possibly be?” Well, as it turns out, GLARINGLY bad. EMBARRASSINGLY bad. SO bad, in fact, that it made me downright ANGRY that one of the venerable “Big Three” broadcast networks would actually air it … and in this era of Reality TV, that’s really saying something.
There was absolutely nothing remotely redeeming about “Meteor.” The acting and direction were both about as awful as it gets. The special effects were cheap, and there was absolutely no attempt made at scientific accuracy. Bad enough for you? Well, how about that SCRIPT? According to USA Today, the screenwriter for “Meteor” was one Alex Greenfield, whose last major writing credit was for “WWF Smackdown,” if you can believe that. And BOY, did it show. The script for this film was so laughably, eye-rollingly BAD that for the first time in my life I felt geniunely ashamed of myself for tuning in to watch a show.
What could NBC possibly have been thinking in airing this? My guess is the only thing that mattered was the advertising revenue. Some corporate suit probably said, “It doesn’t matter if the program is bad. What only matters is that we make more money off it than we invested.” Are these the depths to which network television has sunk? If so, I see absolutely NO hope for human civilization.
FR: So, that would be a 'thumbs down" then?
Posted by: Chuck Anziulewicz | July 13, 2009 12:29 PM
Ok, nice segue, I didn’t even notice this had changed from a search for a meteorite to a commercial. And you were rejecting my stuff because you can’t allow the blog to be a free commercial marketplace. if you claim to be providing a service to your readers, shame on you, if I ever believe this stuff again, shame on me. don
Posted by: don stimpson | July 13, 2009 2:30 PM
I can see now that I was killing the messenger, my apologies to Frank Roylance and his work on his blog! don
Posted by: don stimpson | July 13, 2009 6:09 PM