Meteor of November 17

Abstract

I THINK now that more observations of the remarkable phenomenon of November 17 have been brought forward, that we cannot but candidly acknowledge that the evidence is extremely contradictory and impossible to reconcile, that is as applying to one and the same object. Altogether there is something mysterious about it. It is evident that since it appeared to reach the greatest apparent length of about 30° at York, then from all places further south it ought to have attained a length exceeding this, the more so the further south they are. The ends of the beam appeared very well defined from here, and there was very little room for estimates varying according to the observer's sensitiveness to light. If we take the observations made from Clifton, Cirencester, East Clevedon, Woodbridge, and Windsor, as they nearly all agree in estimating the length as over 30°, some considerably over, then these may all relate to the same object. But its appearance from York is flatly contradicted by Mr. Batson's observation from Hungerford, that from Halstead, Essex (which seems to agree with Mr. Batson's), also those from Lincoln's Inn Fields, Greenwich, and Cambridge. All these agree in contradicting the others named above, by assigning a much smaller angular length. Mr. Batson describes a sudden foreshortening which the meteoroid underwent when passing the moon, and since I saw it pass below the moon at practically the same time, then (on the supposition that we beheld the same object) the same shortening ought to have been visible to me; but there was not the slightest trace of any such thing. I noticed that it very gradually shortened in length (after allowing for perspective) in its journey towards the west, which is significant, and explainable if we suppose the body to have been encountering resistance to its momentum. It is impossible to reconcile all the observations, and yet most extraordinary that no single observer is known to have witnessed more than one such phenomenon at about that time except Mr. Worthington, who says he san two at once. I have reason to believe that a rather similar thing was seen below the moon at about 5.30 on that night from here. I see that from Ziericksee, in Holland, a similar phenomenon was seen to transit Pegasi (which would be at about 50° altitude, and on the magnetic meridian from there). If this was the one that I saw, then at the time that it was seen transit Pegasi, from Holland, it would appear to me to be just forming in the south-east, where it appeared to be about 10° above the horizon, it which ease it would have to be under seventy miles high when over Belgium. But it is aim almost certain that it attained a height of over 150 miles during the latter part of its course. As yet (figuratively speaking) the spectra of these auroral phenomena have not thrown as much light on these things as that which enters the narrow slip of the spectroscope to print its uncertain record on the retina. I only hope that some one with a clear bead and much patience will succeed in unravelling the tangled skeins of evidence which surround the mysterious meteoroid of November 17, 1882.