Meteor in the Daytime

Abstract

DEC. 22, about 2 P.M., as our servants were sitting at dinner by the kitchen window, two of them were startled by the sudden appearance of a brilliant meteor descending in the E. with a little inclination to the N. It was not as large as the moon, but much larger than Mars or Saturn, white, and like lightning, with a very quick course, leaving a train as broad as itself, and preserving its full size till it was lost behind the top of an oak tree at a little distance, whose branches, though leafless, seem to have concealed it from view. The next day I found by means of a compass and a joined ruler, that its azimuth was E. by N., its inclination towards N. about 10°, the upper window frame, where it probably came into sight, 48°, and the top of the tree 21° above the horizon. I have not, as yet, heard of any other observation of this remarkable meteor. The position of Hardwick Vicarage, where it was seen, according to the Ordnance Map, is Long. W. 3° 4′ 23″, Lat. N. 52° 5′ 20″.