Abstract
ON the evening of Saturday, May 2, at Filey (Yorkshire) I observed faint indications of an auroral display as early as 10 o'clock. On going out of the house at 11.10, five streaks of light were seen in the north, and a small cloud of light appeared on the horizon, which quickly rose and formed a perfect bow of light of great length and some 10° above the horizon at its highest point; by 11.15 all the streaks had disappeared. At 11.30, rapid beams of light were seen following the curve of the bow from west to east, each succeeded by straight arrow-like flashes above the bow in the opposite direction; 11.36, streaks again appeared on the eastern side; 11.39, the bow threw off clouds, of light radially, first on the western, then on the eastern side; 11.42, the phenomena observed at 11.30 again set in on the western side; 11.49, the bow became very sharp towards the west and threw out streaks of light, while towards the east it became broken and flickering; 11.55, streamers appeared on the eastern side, and the bow became contracted on this side and smaller, striking the horizon at a higher angle; 11.58, the bow thickened and threw off radial clouds again; 12.1, a fine streamer appeared on the extreme eastern side; 12.3, the bow became very irregular, and for the first time the streamers appeared to start below the bow, three very sharp ones forming towards the east; 12.7, a second bow formed below the original one; 12.9, the bow broke up entirely towards the east into fine streamers, radial clouds of light being thrown off in the west; 12.20, bow became very indistinct in the west, and streamers gave place to clouds of light in the east; 12.22, streamers reappeared in the east; 12.25, arc of the bow reformed; 12.27, bow narrowed down and broke into two bows; 12.30, bow became irregular and sank down towards the horizon; 12.37, bow disappeared and faint streamers formed. After this a gradual fading set in, but the light was still visible though feeble at 1 a.m. The atmosphere had been exceptionally clear all through the day.
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M., A. An Auroral Display on May 2. Nature 54, 9 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054009b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054009b0
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