A meteoric rise: Fireball flashes its brilliance across area's night sky

The comet, streaking above the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth. (Clourtesy Mike McCormack at portsmouthwebcam.com)

If you were lucky enough to be outside and looking up - or a certain Portland Police Officer looking for speeders - early Tuesday morning you might have been one of almost 700 across the northern Eastern Seaboard who saw a comet flash across the sky.

The American Meteor Society reported the phenomenon on their website, noting that folks from Pennsylvania to Ontario and Quebec had seen the fireball.

The best photo came from a Portsmouth webcam.

The meteor - said to have been headed north - flashed across the night sky around 12:50 a.m., the AMS said.

The fireball was best seen in Maine, the AMS noted, but witnesses from Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, as well as Canada reported seeing the extraordinary spectacle.

Map denotes what experts believe was the comet's northward trajectory. (AMS graphic)

The Press Herald reported today that Portland Police Sgt. Tim Farris was parked at the Central Fire Station on Congress Street looking for speeders when he saw and his cruiser's dashcam captured the meteor flashing by.

AMS trajectory maps seem to suggest the comet's path may have ended in either northeast New Hampshire or northwest Maine near the Canadian border.

There was no immediate word on whether any of the comet's remnants actually reached the Earth or simply burned up entering the atmosphere.

As of November 2014 there were 5,253 known comets in our solar system.