Well, from here in Northern California I saw roughly 50 Leonids in about one hour. We had patchy thick fog, with variable transparency. Sometimes I could see 4th mag stars, sometimes just barely Jupiter. Despite that, we saw many very bright meteors, some easily brighter than Venus ever gets. Had the skies been dark I am sure I would have seen hundreds per hour.

I saw one Taurid too. It was moving at a 90 degree angle from the Leonids, which is about what you'd expect. The last time I stayed up for the Leonids (1999) I saw about 20 from each shower, which was pretty cool.

All in all, a success, especially since my daughter had a great time, and it's a good deal warmer here than the last time in Maryland (when it was well below freezing).

__________________
Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Well I'm out here in DC and I saw about 40 in an hour. Unfortunatly I missed about half the show when my brother and I decide to go out to country in Lorton. But it was totally fogged up out there so we actually had to come back to the city to see anything. We ended up down at the Potomic where we got a good view, but light pollution was very high.
I only saw one real fireball, the rest were a small fast ones.

I just got in from viewing them with my 11 year old son (it's about 3:30 am PST here). We went out of town a short way, and threw down some patio chair cushions and a down sleeping bag in a farm field and just stared straight up. It was -6 C. We easily saw between 50 and 100 meteors, and some were quite bright. No "storm" though. They seemed to come in small groups. The viewing started out with a thin haze that obscured most of the stars, and probably most of the faint meteors, but it got much better as time passed. I had my camera set up with a 28 mm lens at f2.8 and ISO 200 film. I got up every 5-8 minutes to start a new exposure. I'm sure I caught a few bright ones on film, but I don't have my hopes high for quality due to the haze.

When the haze cleared enough that we could actually see the sickle in Leo, we saw a few meteors come right out of there. One short one went straight down. That was very odd to see compared to the appearance of most of them.

Anyway, that was worth staying up for. How'd the rest of you folks do?

Unfortunately, I had to work last night. Just as well, as it was overcast and drizzly most of the night. Started clearing just as I got off work (5:15 CST). Couldn't see any from downtown Austin, so I headed home. Stopped at a roadside rest area about twenty miles (32 kilometers) east of Austin. Even though it was still partly cloudy, in the fifteen minutes I watched before the sky started to lighten, I saw 27 Leonids and one sporadic. Most of the meteors were faint and fast, but there were three good fireballs. One was so short (it was near the radiant) that I was reminded of a camera flash. All in all, a good show. Not like '66 but better than I've seen since (or before for that matter). I just wish it had been clear and that I had been at home for the peak (normally, I get off at 3:00 or 3:30 and would have been home).

_________________
When in danger, or in doubt...
Run in circles, scream and shout.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kaptain K on 2001-11-18 06:31 ]</font>

FOG! Fog fog fog.

That's all I got to see in Pittsburgh. I was excited, and my no-so-interested-in-astronomy wife wanted to see it too, but our visibility here was about 100 feet.

*sigh*

Still, I'm glad it was a good show for y'all.

Good show, Leo!

On my roof, with clear skies and outside any major city, but in a light-polluted area generally, I saw 40-50 in an hour before the cold drove me back in.

I'd concur with the "short bursts" observation; sometimes I'd go a couple minutes without any, then get three or four within a few seconds.

As you'd expect, distribution across the sky was fairly random, but there seemed to be a couple "hot spots" that got more than average. No doubt this was mere coincidence. However, I did see a few "clusters" where two or three appeared together in the sky within a second of each other. Perhaps these were parts of one grain that divided high in the atmosphere, or small bits brought close together by mutual gravitation; or just coincidence again.

A few were quite bright. But I believe I missed the single best one. As I was dressing to go out, there was a flash like lightning. I wish I'd been outside for that one!

I witnessed a good show from east Tennessee. The skies were clear and I counted over 600 between 4:45 and 6:30am. I saw no really long streaks and nothing very bright, but 3 or 4 had a nice burst at the end. Many had very short apparent paths. I never saw more than 2 simultaneously, although bursts of 4 to 5 in 2 or 3 seconds occurred a few times.

A few strays from other directions passed by as well.

Here in NE Kansas we had clouds ::sigh::

Where the skies are not cloudy all day, but night is another story [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

Well, I too had to work, but made my way outside a couple times. I saw maybe twenty - which is good considering I was staring at a street lamp too. Did see 3 spectacular streaks at the same time at about 2am MDT.

__________________
Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
~Aristotle

I, myself, had slept through most of it. [hangs head in shame] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_redface.gif[/img] By the time I woke up, it was a quarter to 5AM CST and I headed right out, but the clouds had rolled in by then... [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img]

Sounds like I missed a good show. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_mad.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Oh, well. There's always next year...

_________________
"Evangelist" - Evil's Agent

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: James on 2001-11-18 08:53 ]</font>

Same story here in Toronto. Couldn't decide whether to drown my sorrows in Malibu or Scotch.

__________________
Bailey’s second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.

Well, even from my light-polluted site between Washington and Baltimore, I managed to see over a hundred. This was between about 4:30 and 6.10 am EST. I took several breaks in order to thaw out or to roust my wife, so it was well over one per minute.

I had a good omen right at the outside: even as I was leaving my house and still on the porch, I saw one right where I was looking!

As others said, there were definitely bursts. The peak for me seemed to be around 5:10 am, when I saw 15-20 in what I think was less than ten minutes, including two at the same time.

By the time my wife came out, of course, it had died back.

The most impressive single meteor for me was one that formed a short trail almost directly overhead. The trail clearly had a greenish tinge, and where the meteor vanished there was a definite smoke cloud that lasted for another 15-20 seconds afterwards.

Many of the meteors left ionization trails that remained visible for several seconds afterwards.

I'm glad I got up so early, though I'm not going to be good for much today! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I have classes monday, so I need to keep my sleep somewhat regular, and since I came back home at 2300 I slept right through. I tried to watch at 2300, basing myself on the theory that they can't ALL hit at the same time, but I guess I was wrong. I would have seen it in the early morning, the sky here is blue blue blue and at the time must have been pitch black. Blast!

I think we should be a ship that collects all orbiting space trash, natural and other, and throws it down in the atmosphere in large quantities for show. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was about 1:00am and I stepped out to see what was visible. It was a beautiful night. About as clear as I could hope for in my light-infested city. A little hazy on the horizon, but nice and clear overhead. Only a couple of small clouds drifting here and there. I could see down to below 3rd magnitude; the Pleadies were dim but I could make out 6 of them. I had really high hopes. It isn't very good seeing where I live, big buildings and lots of light, so I planned to head out to a more open area.

Since the shower is supposed to peak around 2:30-3:30, I decided to wait indoors for a bit longer. Well, now it's after 2:00 and I have just finished getting ready to head out--and IT'S CLOUDY! Light clouds cover the sky from horizon to horizon. They all rolled in over the last hour or so.

I am soo frustrated. This is supposed to be the area with the highest peak. There may be thousands an hour, but I won't be able to see them. Stupid weather.

(Oh yeah, I did spot one Taurid the first time I stepped out, but that was it.)
_________________
David Hall
"Dave... my mind is going... I can feel it... I can feel it."


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2001-11-18 10:48 ]</font>

Here in Rapid City, SD, it was beautiful and clear until about 0300. What a great show! We were ooh-ing and ah-ing like we were at a fireworks show. The clouds and the cold drove us inside about 0330.
The timing was perfect. Now its completely overcast and we just got a couple of inches of snow.
Lisa

completely socked in with fog here...clear visibility about 10 feet

darnitall

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Zandermann on 2001-11-18 13:32 ]</font>

WhooooHoooooo!!!!!

Everybody please ignore my previous post (well, mostly ignore it). It turns out that the clouds I cursed at so loudly moved out as fast as they came in. Stepping out again at 2:45 I saw that the sky was mostly clear.

For the first 20 minutes it was wonderful. I never saw so many bright meteors before. as mentioned by others, they seemed to come in bursts. But just after 3:00 another cloud bank came in and covered the whole sky. This was interesting though, as they turned out to not be very thick. I could see Jupiter and the brighter stars through most of it. So I ended up watching and seeing quite a few bright meteor flashes through the clouds. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Things partially cleared up about 3:30 and by 3:45 were mostly clear again. Peaks of activity came about every 20 minutes, with meteors averaging maybe one per 5 seconds in those times. Overall I'd say the average was about 3 or 4 per minute between 3:30 and 4:30. The peak of activity was between 4:10 and 4:20; coming about one per second or two. After 4:45 it died out considerably, and I decided to come home at 5:30 when I was only seeing one bright one every 5 minutes or so. (and it was getting cold too.)

I never saw the "thousands" that were predicted (unless it happened during the cloud cover), but I did see dozens. The coolest sighting was when I saw four at once: three in a kind of claw formation and a 4th one below it. The best thing however was the large number of very bright fireballs. They were as bright as the brightest Persieds, only they came in faster and weren't as yellow. At one point it seemed like every other meteor was like that. I can't count how many there were that left bright smoke trails, 20 or 30 at least. The 2 best ones were just after I started. One was very bright and glowed blue-white with sparks shedding off it. The other was partly obscured by a house, but it left a trail that I could see in binoculars for a long time afterwards.

Overall, this turned out to be the best shower I've seen in ages, if not ever. If the clouds hadn't interfered, It would have been perfect. I guess I still have to wait for a real storm though.

(Oh, and I spotted another Taurid, too. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img])
_________________
David Hall
"Dave... my mind is going... I can feel it... I can feel it."

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2001-11-18 14:32 ]</font>

I counted 570 meteors, and about 530 of those were between 4:45 and 6:00 AM eastern. It was pretty darned foggy, and about 1/4th of the time I could only see the brighter stars, but the rest of the time visibility was OK, and about another 1/4 of the time, visibility was pretty darned good.

About 1/3rd of them were brighter than Jupiter. I saw one that was so bright that it left a trail that was visible for more than 15 seconds. Sometimes a "star" meteor appeared in the constellation Leo. Since the meteors were pretty much going straight toward me, they didn't appear to move much. I saw one meteor that had absolutely NO apparent motion. It looked like a -1 mag star that appeared and then dissappeared after about a second and a half. Once I saw the fog light up for a split second. I didn't see the meteor, but it must have been AWFULLY darned bright.

I also saw a few exploding meteors. They were bright enough to leave a trail, so I could easily see the path it took. The exploding ones left a lump around the middle of the trail, and also changed direction slightly.

I got absolutely no sleep until 6:30 when it began to get light, and then slept until about 1:00.

WOW, it was worth it. The most I had ever seen in one night before that was 109, and that was in two and a half hours. Last night I saw over 500 in just over an hour.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I noticed that the meteors seemed to come in bursts too. I'd see one every three seconds for about 30 seconds, and then there'd be a minute or so where there would only be about one meteor, and so on. Anyone know why? Is it coincidence, or something else?

Verry coool write up David.
Made me think of an old Weather Report album from '73 called "Mysterious Traveller", altho the cover art is of a comet.

Windows Media has the intro cut of the title track....

http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver.../ITEMID=317174

I got up at 3:30 am two night on a row to see... nothing but fog. Damn this country.

> Michiel <

Think I'm going to try it tonight. It's about 90% cloud cover now. Maybe by 4am it'll clear enough to see some of the stragglers go out with a flash, ending their long, long sojourn.

Yeah, well I got up at 4am for a look. 100% cloud cover! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_mad.gif[/img]

Straight back to bed.

I heard on NPR the Leonids meteor shower won't be around for awhile. Seems this weekend is the last year of a 5 year run-thru, with the next rendevous not until 2095 or so. <:-(
http://leonids.hq.nasa.gov/leonids/meteor_anim.html


Scroll down for Leonid images/movie...
http://www.apogee-ccd.com/camimages.html#Leonid

Torsten, hope you'll post some of your Leonid time exposures for us!




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rmallon on 2001-11-18 18:33 ]</font>

Just wonderin if we could get a report from our overseas friends who might have been able to see the later forecast peaks.

Totally fogged over here...wouldn't even want to drive much last night.

Rob

See above for David Hall's report from Osaka, Japan.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

We were roundly clouded out. Michigan treats astronomy enthusiasts with sinister contempt. We Michiganders must learn to live with the weather. I did something else which was also interesting. Here we all wear a second hat in additional to amateur astronomer: Amateur Meteorologist!

I have friends in Florida who gloated. Ruffians!

However, here is another good URL to help soothe the heavy spirits:

http://www.leonidslive.com/meteors/gallery_18nov01.html

ljbrs [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img]

I looked from Lousiville Kentucky. There was a lot of fog here too, but we saw probably 30 or 40 from 4:00 eastern to 6:00. I saw one that was bright yellow, and as it streaked down, it left a bright green cloud behind it, that stayed in the air for about 6 seconds before disappearing. I think it was worth freezing to see.

For those of us who were clouded out, there seems to be some good news! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img] Predictions for next year are even better for 2002. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

http://www.arm.ac.uk/leonid/encounters.html

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Kooool site, ljbrs!
At least the stinkin' clouds/fog didn't wrap the entire globe last night.

Randy