Green Meteor, Great Surprise

Object Type: meteor
Location: Itajobi, SP, Brazil
21º10′ S
49º03′ W
+453m
Date: 08/07/2011
Time: 12h10 (U.T.)
Instrument: none (naked eye)
Media: 2B 0.5mm graphite pencil on white paper
Observer: Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

That night in July I was observing some deep sky objects through my 180mm reflector in my mother’s farm, about 3 miles from town (a small one, I should say). There was no light pollution or any light around, so that was a great place to set a scope. The sugar canes were still low so they wouldn’t be a hassle. The zenith naked eye limit magnitude was around 5.5, and the seeing was also great, ranging from one to two (Antoniadi). It was all perfect, but the wind started to blow tough, rising a lot of dust from the ground in a way I was forced to cover the telescope. It was still early, about 9 p.m. local time, and I was decided not to leave the farm yet, since I had arrived there only one hour and a half before. So I decided to pick up my binoculars, a 10×50, to glance at some objects in Scorpius. When I was walking toward the car, where the binoculars were in, I lifted my eyes and saw the brighest bolide I’ve ever seen. It lasted at least three seconds, and crossed more than 40 degrees in the dark sky, close to Centaurus and Crux. It was green, and exploded beautifully right before fading. I could not believe in such astonishing meteor, and stood still, glaring the sky for a brief moment, with the image in my mind. Then I sketched it before I forgot some precious detail, as you can see above. I hope you enjoy it, it was amazing.

Thanks for the opportunity to immortalize this moment.
Clear sky to everyone, Rodrigo.