Martin1x.jpg

A Perseid fireball photographed August 12, 2006, by Pierre Martin of Arnprior, Ontario, Canada.

(NASA)

More than 120 people reported seeing a flaming fireball traveling east to west in the sky over Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alberta, Canada and Montana on Wednesday morning.

The term “fireball,” said Jim Todd of OMSI, is just another word for a meteor that’s brighter than the planet Venus. Wednesday morning’s fireball was reportedly brighter than a full moon.

The

collected more than 120 reports.

Maclain M. in Silverton reported seeing the fireball at 5:55 a.m. and called it the “longest and slowest one I have seen.”

In an email to The Oregonian, D. Rogers of Lake Oswego said he was standing out on his balcony when “a large ball of of light streaked across the sky from east to west. Clearly extreme speed as it took only 4 to 5 seconds to cross the sky. Quite large and had a trail lit up as well.”

Some observers reported that the fireball was blue and white and traveled across the entire sky.

Steve L. in Tigard said the fireball showed “no apparent elevation change. Traveled east to west across the entire visible sky -- very long.”

“Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day,” Todd said in news release. "The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.”

Please send any photos or videos of this morning's fireball to breakingnews@oregonian.com.

-- Stuart Tomlinson