[vsnet-chat 1476] Leonids (OT)

["Fraser Farrell" <fraserf@dove.net.au>]

G'day all,

Like so many of us, I sat outside this morning in the hope of seeing
swarms of Leonids.  In fact I even drove out of town to give myself a
better chance of seeing the faint ones. From this location (at 35d24'S
138d26'E) the Leonid radiant would be visible for about two hours before
dawn; low in a dark northeast sky.  Not ideal conditions but I couldn't
afford the plane trip to Mongolia!  As it turned out I also had patchy
cloud and a chilly 25-30 knot wind to contend with too.

During the observing period (Nov 17 16:30 to 18:40UT) I saw 39 Leonids.
About the same _rate_ as I saw in 1997, but most of this year's Leonids
were bright (mags -3 to 1) with many leaving long, brief, trails. In
retrospect I could have seen them nearly as well from home.

Interestingly there were a few bright meteors seen going _towards_ the
radiant.  Do Leonids bounce? ;-)

But no fireballs and certainly nothing like the descriptions of previous
Leonid Meteor Storms.  The ZHR for me works out to about 100 - high but
not spectacular.  There's lots of pre-frontal cirrus overhead now so I'm
not expecting to see anything tomorrow morning.  Although I'm slightly
disappointed by the non-appearance of "meteor rain" this year I thought
it was worth watching.

But unfortunately the Leonids were overhyped by the local press - "the
Meteor Storm _will_ appear..." etc - so local talkback shows got several
callers this morning *complaining* about the "non-event". I expect some
hostile questions at our public astronomy night this Friday :(

What did the rest of you see?


cheers,
Fraser Farrell

http://vsnet.dove.net.au/~fraserf/  email: fraserf@dove.net.au
traditional: PO Box 332, Christies Beach, SA 5165, Australia

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