An amateur meteor spotter caught the moment when a fireball flew across Iowa's sky Thursday evening. Tim Cline says he has two cameras pointing at the sky at his Williamson observatory. He says the
footage shows a meteor flying north towards Des Moines. Consistent with witness reports, the timestamp puts the bright object flying by at 5:41 p.m.
Channel 13 received several reports of a colorful fireball across the metro and even on the Iowa/Missouri border.
The National Weather Service said they also caught some footage of it.
They later backtracked saying the moving object in their video was more likely Venus.
The evening sky was well described by our viewers. Mercedes Sholley posted on the
Channel 13 Facebook page, "I watched it change colors from the yellow red and orange to green blue and purple right before it sizzled out and went black and I watched it break off into at least 3 pieces."
Jakob Kranovich also described it, "I literally drove right underneath it. It looked like a giant firework going sideways. It gave off a bright green glowing color (I'm dead serious) and broke up and sparks showered everywhere and faded out. Happened too fast to get a picture and I was driving as well."
"It was awesome. Unfortunately no pics but I don't think I'll get that image out of my mind," Jamie Croatt commented.
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Comment: Note that this was a separate event to the other large meteor fireball that exploded over Minnesota and Iowa in the evening of 27 December 2013:
Another massive fireball meteor fragments over U.S., seen this time from Minnesota and Indianapolis, 27 December 2013