Abstract
THE meteors during October have been numerous, and the most of them proceeded from some point in Auriga. With the exception of about nine days of unfavourable weather, I have seen several meteors night and morning throughout October, but they were generally small and transient. I have counted fifty-two from 10 p.m. of October 3 to 4.30 a.m. of the 4th, many of them large and of several seconds' duration. The largest of these passed slowly from the first bright star on the left of Capella, in Auriga, to a point about 1° below α Cygni. The smallest of them blinked rapidly before the eye in the zenith over the Milky Way, which, this night, was the principal theatre of their display. From 3.30 to 4.30 a.m. I counted forty of the fifty-two meteors. From 1 a.m. to 4 of October 8 I observed very brilliant meteors. One at 2.25 a.m. darted from about 1° above Capella and disappeared at a point ½° from Phad in the Plough, without exploding and without leaving any trace of light behind. It was as large as Venus. At 2.40 a.m. a very large and brilliant meteor dashed out from a point midway between Capella and the first bright star to its right in Auriga, and sped along above the Pleiades and Aries through the Square of Pegasus, and exploded 3° beyond it, leaving no fire in its wake. October 15, 11.38 p.m., a very unusual meteor sailed slowly from β Ceti to within 1° of Betelgueux, in the right shoulder of Orion. After travelling two-thirds of its journey, it exploded into four, three of which formed the head of an arrow, and the fourth adorned its tail, all the four sending out bright nebulous light behind them. At 2.50 a.m., October 26, a large ball of fire (bolide), apparently seven inches in diameter, illumined the heavens with great brilliancy as it descended from about midway between the third and fourth bright stars on the left of Capella, exploding twice during the last half of its journey, and disappearing just as it reached the moon. It had no tail. It was seen by some of the Paisley night police, and one of them was frightened that it would dash the moon out of the heavens. This bolide had no detonation in either of its two explosions, and the last of it was only about the size of Jupiter. One policeman describes it as a large fiery ball of the size of the full moon, but this is an exaggeration. The extraordinary meteor of October 15, after its explosion, was described by an ob erver as a wellformed arrow of flaming fire, followed by a ball of fire with a tail. To me it appeared to resemble the head and body of a fish, as well as the form of an arrow.
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CAMERON, D. Meteors. Nature 29, 56 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/029056b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029056b0
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