Footage from Open Roads’ east facing CCTV camera which captured a meteor entering the atmosphere, at 3:35 a.m. Nov. 9. The footage was posted to YouTube by Open Roads Maintenance staffer Mike Goodman.

By Chris Marchand

A video of a large meteor streaking through the skies east of Dryden generated quite a stir last week in local circles.

Mike Goodman, a stargazer and maintenance staffer at Open Roads School says he was intrigued to see reports of a meteorite visible from Dryden on the online blog Lunar Meteorite Hunters from the early morning hours of Nov. 9.

It was easy enough to check the school’s east facing security camera footage at approximately 3:35 a.m. And there it was.

Over several seconds a large-sized fireball with an impressive tail tracks across the sky from south to north, disappearing behind the cover of neighbourhood homes.

“I love this kind of stuff,” said Goodman. “Sure enough one of the outdoor cameras captured it perfectly. This was the day before the grand opening of Open Roads and I just thought it was a really wonderful, auspicious sign for our school.”

On the website, two more reports came in from Dryden — describing the fireball as moving west-to-east with the fireball breaking up as it descended low on the horizon. Two more reports were generated out of Winnipeg both describing its direction as northerly.

Posting the video to YouTube and notifying Lunar Meteorite Hunters of his find, Goodman says he was soon after contacted by the Tokyo-based operator of the blog, who asked Goodman to search for more footage from different local sources in an effort to triangulate where the meteorite struck the ground.

“From what I understand, if they had other angles, that would give them a rough idea of where to look for it.”

Unfortunately, efforts to find similar local footage of the meteor’s descent to earth on Domtar and other local cameras have so far come up short. Time is a factor when it comes to CCTV systems, says Goodman as most security camera footage is overwritten on a regular basis.

“Hopefully people will check,” said Goodman.