Everyone is telling there Leonids story so I thought I'd add mine:
First meteors I ever remember seeing was the 1966 Leonids at Borego Springs when I was 11y. I was camping with my Dad and we just got lucky. For years to come I thought that this is what a typical shower would be like and in later years had to saddly learn otherwise. But I have seen my share of fireballs.
It was sure cold last night! Our temperture dipped an extra ten degrees for just the occasion. Last year I was in my backyard but felt if this year I should seek out company. My greatest fear about sleeping in is the chance of hearing next day stories about missing an Apocalypic level event- angels trumpets in the heavens, cows pannicing in the fields, etc., as you never can tell in advance about these things.
The Owen's Valley is usually a great place for star observation and the local enthusist had a warming fire a few miles out of town. I had thought about seeking out one of our local hot springs for a 'wet observation' as I did for comet series a couple years back. Only about a dozen souls showed up this year. I was told last year leonids attracted a group about two hundred.TA high altitude haze gave a ring around the moon which was bright enough to read by washing out a but the brightest stars. I couldn't make out any -2 Mag stars. Just the same it was a far showing. A good average showers, a few multiples, nice colors. I would say twenty-fve a minute at the peak which seemed to come around 2:45. But this could have been a temporary clearing of the haze as the ring had vanish at this time.
I was lucky to have just gotten O. Richard Norton's encyclopedia (see p.17) which allowed me to egghead off to my friends about the storm. (Arrived in Saturday's mail- Thanks Ron Hartman!) I was able to whip fact about stream 4 and stream 7, 8:5 orbital coupling with the meteroids and Jupiter nicely visible near Leo. About 3:00 most of us deciding it was time for bed. Drove home and caught one last meteor before retiring.
Howard Wu
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