Abstract
THE occurrence on August 18 at about 22h 23m (Summer Time) of a brilliant object, evidently a fireball or particularly bright meteor, has been referred to by several correspondents in the Yorkshire Post. The accurate observation of the apparent path of a meteor requires a trained observer, and it is to be expected that accounts supplied by casual eye witnesses are often vague, conflicting, and quite unreliable for the data required to fix the real path above the earth. It seems, however, very probable that the fireball which lit up the countryside from which it was seen (including North Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Westmorland) was associated with the Perseid shower of meteors. This shower, which provides a high maximum frequency of meteors between August 10 and 12, is really operative from about mid-July until after mid-August; during this period the radiant point moves progressively from a position at about R.A. lh:Dec.+50 ° to R.A. 4h: Dec. 65 °, or from a position in the constellation Andromeda, through Perseus (which gives the shower its name) to Camelopardus.
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Fireball over Yorkshire. Nature 138, 360–361 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138360f0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138360f0