OBSERVATIONS OP LUMINOUS METEORS. ^S 



eveniug of tho 8l.U of November, between half-past 10 and half-past 11 



o'clock, one of which, at 10" ;37'", was 



perfectly similar to the Leonids in all / AjuiLcc 



respects, and was as bright as Siriiis. -^^ ^ ^^ • __,- 



A 2ud-raaffnitnde meteor, leaving a ^-^i^-^" 



long streak, also shot betweeen Ancs ^^ / ^\ 



and Cetns from the direction of the / "^^^ 



Pleiades and of the head of Leo as / "^\ 



late as the evening of the 18th of J, ^x 



November, qnite resembling in its ap- n 



pearance, and being perfectly conform- ^^ 



able to the radiant-point of that well- ^s 



known group. The following notice of 



a contemporaneous radiant-point accompanies Mr. Backhouse's description of 



his observations of the shower : — 



" I enclose a Table of the most important meteors that I saw last month. 

 Those marked L are Leonids, and those marked 11^ are conformable to Heis's 

 radiant-point H*. I was surpiised to see two Leonids so early as November 

 8 ; although the path of that at 10'' 37'" was not quite in the right direction 

 for the great shower of the 13th, I have not the least doubt that it was one 

 of them, for it was exactly like them. I watched for the Leonids for 25 

 minutes on the 12th [morning of the 13th], between 16'' 17'" and 17" 25"', 

 and saw two. The next night was throughout cloudy, whenever I looked 

 out, with very small gaps in the clouds, so I saw no meteors." Besides the 

 Leonids here noticed five meteors directed from the radiant-point E.^ were 

 seen on the nights of the 8th and 9th of November. 



At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the sky was overcast on the nights 

 of the 11th and 13th, and only clear at intervals on that of the 12th. A 

 watch was, however, kept on the last two of these nights until after 3 o'clock 

 on the morning of the 13th, and until daybreak on the morning of the 14th 

 of November, and the apparent courses of about thirty shooting-stars were 

 mapped. Of these, four on each night proceeded, roughly, from the direction 

 of Leo, the remaining meteor-courses being chiefly directed from Taurus and 

 from other contemporaneous radiant-points in other parts of the sky. On 

 the night of the 14-15th the sky was again quite overcast ; and as far as 

 could be gathered from the observations under such unfavourable conditions, 

 the number of the Leonids observed was two or three times less than that of 

 the meteors visible from other radiant-points, or of the sporadic meteors visible 

 on an ordinary November night ; and no distinct return of the November 

 meteor-shower at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, covxld be recorded as 

 having been visible on the annual dates in the year 1871. 



Although cloudy on the previous and the following nights, the sky was 

 remarkably clear at Hawkhnrst on the night of the 13th-14th of November; 

 and a watch for the November meteors was kept from half-past eleven until 

 half-past one, and again for about half an hour soon after two o'clock. The 

 first Leonid was visible at 11'' 33"', as bright as Jupiter, passing in a long 

 course and leaving a long streak from under Ursa Minor to the N.W. horizon. 

 In the following two hours twelve Leonids and twenty-six other meteors, 

 none of very great brilliancy, were noted, and their courses were mapped by 

 one observer. The unconformable shooting-stars all proceeded from a radiant- 

 region in or near the space contained between the heads of Taurus and Orion 



* Also noticed by Mr. Backhouse on the -Ith and 6th of November, 1869 ; see these 

 Kcports for 1870, p. 97. 



