KELOWNA -- Startled stargazers were treated to a rare and beautiful sight this week when a brilliant meteor streaked through Okanagan skies.

"It was an amazing, vibrant sight, a fireball with a white centre, blue halo and a long pink tail," said Connie Denesiuk, who, with her husband, Bob, happened to see the meteor from the deck of their Summerland home.

The unusually large shooting star was visible for just a few seconds around 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday.

"It was like a piece of fireworks travelling horizontally through the sky, much bigger than the normal shooting stars you see," added Gary Nylander, a newspaper photographer who saw the meteor as he drove to his home on the Westside near Kelowna.

There are reports of people seeing the meteor all over B.C., said Ken Tapping, an astronomer at the White Lake observatory near Penticton.

"It sounds like it was a real humdinger, something that would have definitely given you a headache if it fell on you," Tapping said.

Most meteors, chunks of space debris left over from the formation of the solar system, burn up before hitting the earth, but one or two land somewhere on the planet every day, he said.