-- This file contains the account of the 1933 Draconids meteor storm -- as observed by Rev. W. F. A. Ellison (Former Director of Armagh Observatory) -- -- The article below was published in the Belfast Telegraph -- on Wednesday, October 11, 1933. (Page 7) -- -- The article was transcribed by Geert Barentsen on October 7, 2011, -- based on a copy of the newspaper found in the archive of Armagh. -- (credit: John McFarland and Mark Bailey) --- Headline: METEORS' DISPLAY. GREATEST OF CENTURY. SPEED IS THEIR UNDOING. --- Text: SMOTHERED IN UPPER AIR. The heavens sprang a surprise on us, on Monday night, in the shape of a really great meteoric shower, by far the greatest of the present century (writes Rev. W. F. A. Ellison, of Armagh Observatory). Not the least surprising thing was that it was one of the minor showers which suddenly sprang into unexpected activity. Meteoric astronomy has been very much under a cloud for a long time. The great Leonid shower, which provided such sensational displays in 1833 and 1866, failed altogether to put in an appearance when due in 1899. The Andromedids also seem to have petered out, little or nothing having been seen of them since 1904. Last year we watched the heavens on November 15 and 16, hopefully, but in vain, for some sign of the truant Leonids. There still remains the possibility that the missing stream may turn up next month, on the 15th or 16th. In the meantime, when we were expecting nothing, out of the void came a totally unlooked for display of fireworks. Monday evening, after a stormy and wet day, was fine and clear. Just before 7 p.m. I noticed a brilliant meteor drop from the constellation Lyra towards the South-Western horizon, and made a mental note of time and direction. Five minutes later I counted a dozen meteors during the few minutes occupied in walking up the 180 yards of the Observatory avenue. It was evident that something unusual was in progress, and I proceeded to don an overcoat and muffler and repair to the flat roof of the house to watch and count. Between 7 an 7-35 p.m. I counted 300 meteors. The majority were small objects of the 3rd and 4th magnitudes, but brighter ones were frequent, and occasionally there were brilliant flashing fireballs which lighted up the landscape like sheet lightning. One such dropped across the tail of the Great Bear, another threaded the whole length of the Sword of Perseus, while a third cut across the Western side of the Great Square of Pegasus. REALLY GREAT STORM. Called indoors for the evening meal at 7-35, I was out again at 7-58. Then it was apparent that a really great meteoric storm was in progress. I counted 200 meteors in two minutes, and then counting became impossible. The fire-stars became as thick as the flakes of a snowstorm. Instead of twos and threes they came in flocks and gusts. The sky was thick with them wherever one looked. On such an occasion the determination of the radiant, an important observation, becomes easy. One has only to watch the neigbourhood in which the radiant is assumed to be, and severeal meteors are sure to be seen coming "head on" or nearly so; just little to right or left, up or down, and by means of these the radiant can be fixed very closesly indeed. AS a matter of fact, the radiant on Monday did not appear to be a point, but a small circular area, the 3rd magnitude star Xi Draconis being just within its Northern boundary. Little is known of this Beta Draconids radiant, except that it has produced a few meteors on the date October 9. No great shower has been observed to emanate from it in the past, so that the event of this week is a complete surprise. Such an event is, of course, a possibility with any known radiant, and even with an unknown one. There is nothing to prevent a previously unknown stream of meteoric bodies, of which there must be millions, undergoing a change, through the attraction of some planet, which will bring it athwart the orbit of the Earth. Some comet is probably associated with all such streams, but in most cases it is a small one, and may escape observation altogether. This, I believe, is the case with the comet associated with the Beta Draconids, for I have never heard of one being observed. FIREBALLS OBSERVED. The maximum of the shower was between 8 and 8-20 p.m. on Monday, but it continued intense for another half hour, and droppings from the shower went on till 10 p.m., and later. Many very beautiful objects were observed; fireballs as bright as Venus or Jupiter, and occasionally much brighter, appeared in a momentary splendour. These exceptional objects had long luminous trains which lasted for a few seconds after the meteor had vanished. Also the character of their light was very bright, diamond-like, and sparkling. It reminded the observer of the light given by burning iron filings in oxygen. Probably the meteors were actually of iron. An alloy of iron with a proportion of nickel is the commonest material met with in those meteorites which have reached the ground, which are named "siderites," to distinguish them from other stony or earthy ones. What a bombardment the light air of our atmosphere saved us from on an occasion such as this. Let it be realised that each of the "falling stars" which sparkled to their extinction on the background of the starry heavens on Monday night was a lump of iron, weighing anything from a few ounces to several pounds that they were travelling at a speed of 30 miles per second, or sixty times as fast a ride bullet: and that those which flashed out close to the radiant were coming head on straight for the observer; and we may form an idea of the barrage which was smothered in the cushion of the upper air, and prevented from dealing destruction to a whole hemisphere of the Earth. The very speed of the meteors is their undoing. It is only the slow moving ones which ever reach the ground. You dive into the water from a few feet of height and experience nothing but pleasurable sensations. But if you tried a dive from a hundred feet the water would smash you as surely as if it were a concrete floor. And so does the atmosphere smash these formidable missiles, just by reason of their excessive speed. Instead of a deadly menace they provide only a splendid, if rare, sight for the inhabitants of the bottom of our atmospheric ocean. -- END