26 November 2020 Fireball

This bright fireball occurred at 00:22 PM MST over central Colorado. The magnitude at Cloudbait Observatory was at least -14, marking it as a superbolide, brighter than a full Moon.

The Colorado allsky network is not currently operating at full capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far this event was captured on just one camera. Based on its data, as well as a likely seismic signal, and one witness report, it appears the meteor was traveling from south to north and exploded about 65 km above the Tarryall mountains in central Colorado. This event was not part of any shower.

This image is from the Cloudbait camera. Note the 85% Moon in the western sky, at magnitude -12. Events like this, with large explosions, confuse the capture software. As a result, the event was captured as three separate captures. This composite does not include the central explosion, because it was so bright that it prevented the rest of the path from showing. The video (see the details link above) does show the entire event, including the degree to which the surrounding landscape was lit up.

The estimated area of the explosion is marginally covered by two NOAA Doppler radar stations, located in Denver and in Pueblo. Neither shows evidence of having captured any falling debris, although there was some precipitation in the region at the time that makes the data difficult to interpret.

This is the seismic signal recorded at Idaho Springs, CO. Analyzing this data is non-trivial, as the path to the seismometer can be through the air or the ground, or both. However, given the proximity of the event to the instrument, and the lack of multiple peaks, I think it's likely that this represents the impact of a sonic boom that reached the seismometer through the air, allowing its timing to provide a second data point along with the camera information.