A green fireball in Pittsburgh. This photo was taken several days later at the same location. The rough direction and shape of the fireball is painted on the photo.

2002/12/10 Green fireball in Pittsburgh, PA. At around 6:38pm (23:38UT) today, I was waiting in a car for traffic light at the intersection of Forbes and Bellefield in front of Carnegie museum, when I saw a meteor in the west through windshield. It started at around 30 degrees high (that's the cutoff of the windshield), traveling downwards and slightly to the right towards horizon, at a 'slow' pace. I estimate it took 3 to 5 seconds to get low enough to be hidden by buildings. It has a long tear drop shape, the head is quite large. Most significantly the head shines in brilliant green light, while the rest of the teardrop is pale white. As it got low (about 10 to 5 degrees above horizon), it broke into two parts, both heads emit bright green light. The meteor was conspicuous despite all the street lights. Its magnitude is definitely brighter than what Venus would be, but less than the moon. Maybe -6 to -10. Sky was clear. Coincidentally, I was looking at the Peekskill fireball video this afternoon! ( video , APOD ) Tonight's meteor looks quite similar to the video, especially the intense green color, but with less fragments, and maybe less bright. Might it be a Geminid earthgrazer? (John Holtz, AAAP treasurer, saw the fireball too independently)

This is my sketch of a meteor which broke into three segments on 1999/7/7 in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh at 21:20 EDT. It is only 3 hours earlier than a violent New Zealand meteor explosion. A coincidence? The bright star above is Venus.

Sketch of a breaking up meteor. I saw this meteor (a Leonid?) on 1998/11/16 18:13 EST in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. It moved slowly across half the sky from NE to N. White, mag -2. Broke into several yellow/white pieces in the end.