Abstract
ON the night of Monday, April 15 last, at 12h. 26m., a meteor of very exceptional proportions was observed from many parts of the country. The full moon was shining at the time, and near its meridian passage, but the brilliancy of the fireball was such that it vividly illuminated the sky and landscape with a flash which many people mistook for sheet lightning. Several observers describe the meteor as larger and considerably more brilliant than the moon, and at Swindon and Ramsbury a detonation was heard. At the former place the meteor “appeared so close that people thought it descending upon the town; it startled the rooks out of the trees, and suddenly illuminated the country round like the electric light.”
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DENNING, W. Large Fireball. Nature 39, 606 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/039606a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/039606a0
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