LA GARITA, Colo. -- Geologists and meteorite hunters are looking for the exact landing spot for a meteor they now believe fell near a campground close to the San Luis Valley.

The huge fireball was sighted by many people around 10:45 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17.

Forty times brighter than a full moon, the meteor was seen as far away as New Mexico, Wyoming and Idaho, according to a press release from Denver's Nature and Science Museum.

The sighting sparked an influx of calls and e-mails to the museum.

Meteor or Meteorite? A meteoroid is a piece of stony or metallic material which travels in space. A meteor is a piece of stony or metallic material which enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up. A meteorite is a meteor which doesn't burn up before hitting the ground.

Dr. Jack Murphy, a Nature and Science Museum geologist and Dr. Peter Brown from Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico estimate the meteor weighed one metric ton on entry and was traveling 11.25 miles per second.

Saguache Deputy Richard Sutton, patrolling along Highway 17 at County Road H saw a "really intense, bright light like lightning," sometime between 10:30 and 11 p.m.

"It lit up the entire valley but it lasted five to six seconds," Sutton said. The meteor was directly over his head, causing him to crane his neck to follow it.

"I actually saw debris coming through the atmosphere, and smoke with golden sparks trailing behind the meteor. These gold and yellow sparks went very slowly," Sutton said.

"The meteor passed over the town of Center to the north, slowed down to a crawl and went down low, fading slowly before it went dark."

Sutton says he saw no small explosions, and given the amount of burning, the elevation, and the meteor's lowness in the sky, he feels a chunk of the object could be lodged somewhere in Saguache County.

The deputy believes the meteor landed east of the Storm King campground.

Monte Vista resident Mike Valdez was relaxing in his hot tub that night when he saw the meteor.

"It was just plain awesome," Valdez said. "It's so hard to describe because there's nothing to compare it to."

Valdez said the light "was so bright it dwarfed the intensity of the city light in my backyard. It was bright white, and after it finished burning it spread apart into two reddish-orange balls."

About 15 minutes later, Valdez said he heard noises "like low thunder."

Del Norte residents Lance and Deanne Andersen were camping near Summitville that evening when they saw the meteor streak through the sky and disappear over the mountains.

"It lit up the valley like daylight," Andersen said. "I could see along way. It was pretty impressive."

He watched the meteor until it disappeared somewhere over the La Garita Mountains.

It was first believed that the meteor went down somewhere in the vicinity of the San Juans in Conejos County.

Later the site was better pinpointed, after studying eyewitness reports, to the Storm King area.

Murphy traveled to the San Luis Valley last week to interview eyewitnesses, among them Andersen and Valdez.

"We're looking for people who were stationary or sitting down and actually saw pieces falling from the sky," Murphy said. "If we have some landmarks, like between a chimney and a telephone pole, we can line it up with compass bearings."

The museum hopes to do a scientific study on the meteor and would like to tell people how to identify meteorites, Murphy emphasized.

Meteorites found will not be confiscated, only examined. The space rocks belong to private property owners if found on private land and to the federal government, if found on BLM or national forest land.

Eyewitnesses are asked to call Dr. Jack Murphy at (303) 370-6445.