Leonids - How were they ?

I was not able to be awake last night and watch the Leonid shower. And I
havent read on here how it was.
I am curious, was it very good at all here in the US.

Thank You
Craig

I observed for about 3 hrs. from 1-4 a.m. central under pretty dark
skies near Pleasant Hill, MO. I did not keep an accurate count, but I
would guess I saw 20-24 in that time. Nice night, most were faint, a
few left small trails. Ironically, the nicest one observed was not a
Leonid. I kept the scope inside and used my 15x60 Pentax instead.
Excellent night, all it needed was more Leonids. I'm surprised by the
lack of posts this year. Come on Easy Coasters, where are the
reports. Clouded out??? Somebody must have gone out.


On 19 Nov 2003 15:13:01 GMT, (DXer) wrote:

I was not able to be awake last night and watch the Leonid shower. And I
havent read on here how it was.
I am curious, was it very good at all here in the US.

Thank You
Craig

Well, it wasn't a storm or even a rich shower, but from here in southeastern
Nebraska, it was a fair meteor shower and a better "social event". We had
about 25 people gathered at Olive Creek State Recreation area southwest of
Lincoln a little after 11:00 p.m., with most staying until 1:30 a.m. (a
smaller group remained until 3 a.m). We had 4 telescopes which were used
initially until the shower got going around midnight, looking at things like
the Pleiades or the Orion Nebula. The shower started weakly with only a
handful of meteors visible before midnight, but eventually, the rate began to
slowly climb a bit. People were seeing at best between 10 and perhaps 15
Leonid meteors per hour, along with a handful of Taurids or sporadics. Dr.
Martin Gaskell of UNL who was with us recorded about 17 in 2 hours but he said
he had a few gaps in his data when he wasn't observing. We had a lot of
socializing and good fun, so some of us weren't watching all that carefully
either :-). There weren't a lot of faint Leonids, but there were also no
bright fireballs either (two were probably -1 and -3 in magnitude, with the
rest in the zero to +4 magnitude range). There were a couple 5 minute
intervals where a person might see two meteors, followed by a longer "meteor
drouth". One 5 minute interval after 1 a.m. had 3 Leonids seen, but it was
about as high as the rate would ever get. As the predicted peak time of 1:30
a.m. approached, we saw no signs of any distinct peak. After 2 a.m. the rate
seemed to be declining somewhat, although it still appeared a bit better than
the "normal" Leonid rate seen when the shower is well away from the storm
years. We watched the crescent moon come up on the ridge on the far side of
the lake, although it didn't seem to be hurting the quality of the sky very
much. Despite the lower than expected meteor rate, most of us had a really
good time out under the clear but rather cool late autumn sky. Clear skies to
you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

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