Page:The Meteors of December 12-13, 1866, as observed at Millbrook, Tuam (IA paper-doi-10 1093 mnras 27 5 205).pdf/1

Rh An “observer” at Sealkote states that he saw meteors from midnight of the 13th to the dawn of the 14th inst. There is a report that the meteors were seen at Lahore “to clash against each other and mount upwards again.”

Though the December meteors could not be compared to the wondrous display of the previous month, still in scientific interest they may be considered quite equal to their more brilliant precursors; and as I have not seen them noticed by other observers Iam the more induced to offer the following brief account of them for the consideration of the Society.

There was great rain for two hours before 9 on the 12th, when it began to clear, and at 9° 15" I saw a small meteor going south from Gemini. Within the next fifteen minutes I observed nine others shown by alignments to radiate from within a circle about 3° in diameter, with its centre in Right Ascension 107° and North Polar Distance 71°. However, a slightly elongated and almost stationary meteor which appeared at the intersection of lines joining β and ε, δ and θ Geminorum would seem to indicate a somewhat higher radiant; and, as the night advanced, a few of the meteors proceeded from other places in the neighbourhood of Gemini. Regarding the tangent of the Earth’s course on the night in question as directed towards 171° of longitude, it will be seen that the December radiant shows an orbit differing widely in relation to our own from that of the November group. Up to 1 25 on the morning of the 13th I counted 260 meteors diverging to every point in the heavens, but the greater number fell towards the horizon between the south and the north-west. Unlike the full, glowing disks that traversed the sky on the 14th November, the present meteors might be described as having a cindery aspect, with, however, some notable exceptions. They were mostly of a bluish white colour; and red was to be found only among those that showed no connexion with the radiating movement, and of which I counted twenty. Though many appeared as trainless sparks, they generally showed tails that differed from those of the November meteors, as they were always of the same colour as the nuclei and left no cloudy traces after their extinction—facts suggestive of the idea that they were merely optical. One that was brighter than Sirius passed close to that star, as did another with equal