The Great Prairie Meteorite Search

Well I've gone and done it...... booked a room for a couple of nights at the Marsden Hotel. I will be joining a bonafide official search for pieces of the Saskatchewan Meteor that fell just South of Lloydminster last November 20, how cool is that?

The search is being conducted by the University Of Calgary and are calling for volunteers, so if you happen to be in the area between now and the end of May...... and I really don't know why you would be, they have a place for you, a once in a lifetime chance to look for a meteorite.

The search will be done CSI style, where you have up to 10 people in teams all in a line walking slowly across the field looking for the meteorite, they figure there are still thousands of pieces yet to be discovered, and I will be there taking pics for a future post.

The image above is my Saskatchewan Meteorite on it's new stand, it goes round and round and shines a light on it as well, I like to watch it go round, till I get bored.


From meteorite search to meteor search, woo frigging hoo, after I finish my searching for the meteorite on Tuesday April 21, I will be heading back to Saskatoon to get ready for the peak of the Lyrid Meteor Shower. Look NE around 11:00 pm April 21 in the direction the constellation Lyra, if you don't know what the Lyra constellation looks like, don't worry, just look north east. Not the biggest meteor shower, around 10-20 an hour, but it is warmer then the usual meteor showers, being in April and this time you won't have the pesky bright Moon to interfere, doesn't rise here till 4:30 am CST, just after the meteor shower peaks, around 2:00 am CST on the 22nd.

But again, that's not all folks. After the meteor shower , or at around 6:39 am CST we have a Lunar occultation of Venus, that is, the Moon will cover Venus. If you live almost anywhere in North America, you will see the occultation, trouble being it will occur in the daytime, except on the West Coast, where the occultation occurs at twilight, so you will need at least a pair binoculars to view it properly, I will try to get some images of the Moon covering and then uncovering the Planet Venus for you if you miss it.

Well there you have it, lots of celestial stuff going on, A meteorite search, a meteor search and a Lunar occultation of Venus, almost too much excitement for one person to handle.

I'll leave you now with an animation of one of my creamsicle Full Moons.

The Saskatchewan (Buzzard Coulee) Meteorite

At around 6:26 pm CST November 20 2008 a 10 tonne meteoroid collided with our Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 km an hour creating a fireball so bright it was viewed by thousands of people across the land from British Columbia to Manitoba. This meteoroid with temperatures as hot as the Sun exploded with the force of 300 tonnes of TNT sending thousands of pieces of space debris called meteorites down to Earth over a 20 sq. km area 35 km South of Lloydminster , a place called Buzzard Coulee Saskatchewan.


I now own a piece of this meteoroid thanks to the tireless, selfless efforts of Murray who has been involved with the scientists led by Dr. Alan Hildebrand. Murray is helping with the collection of specimens as well as documenting the fall. Murray has spent countless hours negotiating a price with the local farmers to bring a few pieces to average people like me and you, very refreshing considering the money hungry people out looking to make a profit from these stones.



No I'm not a fanatic, just because I made a shrine for it or gave it the name Boba jr., there is just something about holding a piece of debris from space that makes you feel you are touching something special, and the smell, I've smelt a lot of rocks in my time but this one just smells cool, like space.


Okay, a little tech stuff here. The meteorite is classified as a H 3/4 chondrite meteorite, the H just means it's high in iron content, it will be attracted to a magnet, I have it in my hands sticking to a magnet right now, that's right I am holding it and typing right now, I'm about to smell it again, excuse me,..................., okay I'm back, awesome. Called a chondrite because it contains tiny chondrules. Chondrules are tiny droplets of silicates formed in our early Solar nebula, starting out as tiny molten droplets which cooled and then through accretion by gathering surrounding dust and particles it formed it's parent asteroid. The image above courtesy me, arrows courtesy Murray show these primitive droplets in the meteorite. By studying these chondrules it helps scientist understand how our early Solar system formed, how cool is that?


The image above is a microscopic image of the dark side of my meteorite, or what is called the fusion crust. The fusion crust is the result of the surface of the meteoroid melting due to the extreme temperatures created as it is traveling with great speed through our atmosphere, making a glassy black/blue finish, notice the stress cracks.

They estimate hundreds if not thousands of pieces are still waiting to be recovered. I will be out in the spring either with the scientists or by my self or both looking for some of these treasures and will be documenting my quest with video and pics, stay tuned.

If there is anyone reading this post that has any further information relating to the fall let me know and I will contact Murray and the team with said info.

I'll leave you now with a video of some of the news coverage back in November.

Comet Like Meteor, Conjunctions, The Sasktchewan Meteor And A Special Cameo Appearance Of The Runaway Tool Kit

Okay, I got a new favorite meteor image. You're probably thinking, Bob, it's a small one, you've taken better, well thank you, but this is my new favorite, just look at it, all comet like and cute and small and such, plus the way in how I captured it is very cool.

I was taking an image of the Venus Jupiter gathering when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bright object moving very fast, fine I thought it was a jet at first, but it wasn't leaving any contrails behind, there were quite a few jets out that night and all were slower and left contrails, plus it was going back and forth, almost in a straight line, then vanishing.

Moved my camera towards the last spotted location, thinking great something cool and unusual, took a test shot, and waited, and waited but it never came back. Thought oh well probably some kind of UFO, or test jet, meteors or I was just seeing things.

The next morning I was going through my images of Venus and Jupiter, totally forgot about my encounter of the whatever kind when I noticed there was something on my test shot, a little comet like meteor. Now the ISO was 3200, exposure .25 seconds, so the chances of me catching a meteor in that time frame were slim to nil, very cool, so now it's my fav.


Here is your last notice from me for what NASA is calling the "Best sky show of the year", and it looks like I'm going to miss it, calling for clouds on that day here. On December 1 just after Sunset look to the South West for an awesome conjunction of the crescent Moon, Jupiter and Venus, Venus being just below and to the left of Jupiter and the Moon above the both of them.


The next major conjunction will be December 28th, The Moon, Jupiter and Mercury will be in a straight line grouping just after Sunset, again look to the South West for this gathering.

Just a little update on the Saskatchewan Meteor that occurred here November 20. There are all kinds of people looking for what they estimate to be hundreds of meteorites larger than 50 grams thought to have landed around the Saskatchewan Alberta boarder around Manitou Lake. One meteorite collector has offered $12,000 US for a kilogram sized chunk. If I didn't have work to contend with, that's where I would be, let me tell you.

I'm going to leave you now with a video of the ISS toolbag in space taken by satellite observer Kevin Fetter. To see the toolbag streak across the sky go here and type in your Postal or zip codes, it will give you the flyby times and the location in the sky. You will need binoculars, it will look like a faint moving satellite.

Venus, Jupiter, Moon Conjunction and The Saskatchewan Meteor

One week from tonight the Celestial conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Crescent Moon occurs. The above image shows Jupiter and Venus Getting closer together. The inside grouping of Venus and Jupiter was taken November 22, the outside grouping of Venus and Jupiter was taken November 20. You can see the two planets getting closer together and Venus, the bottom of the two starting to whip under Jupiter, the top planet.


The above image shows the Space station joining the grouping, taken November 23rd. Somewhere just behind the Space Station is the missing tool kit. While Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was working outside the station she lost hold of it. To get the exact times of the flyby in your area go here and enter your postal or zip codes, it's actually quite cute, the site gives you various flyby times of satellites... and the toolkit. You will need binoculars to see it as it isn't all that big.

Now, I happened to be out taking an image of the Jupiter Venus gathering at 6:10 pm November 20. I had decided to call it quits early at that time because the wind was freezing my shutter release cable, thought, this is crazy, too cold, I'm going home, get in my car and head back into town. The next morning I hear almost everybody in the office saw this blinding meteor. I asked what time, the reply was 6:30, crap, if I only would have stayed another 20 minutes I probably would have got a shot of it, again all about being at the right place at the right time, which apparently was in your kitchen or living room looking outside.


The yellow area in the above map is the area in which there had been reported sightings. The size of the meteoroid has been estimated anywhere from the size of a baseball to a small car. To date nothing in the way of a meteorite has been found, but they figure if the meteor did land it would be along the Saskatchewan, Manitoba border.

The YouTube video below is what an Edmonton Police car cam captured, wow, talk about being at the right place at the right time. At the Mall I work at we have quite a few outside security cameras, I went through all the footage from that time frame, and found a bright flash on one of them, the meteor was just to the left of the camera, still cool, due to security reasons I can't show you the flash footage, no biggie anyways, just the flash.