From: Alastair McBeath Date: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 5:05 PM SE England seems to have been the place to be in Britain on November 17-18, as I've more positive reports from there already than over the rest of the country combined. UK-only Leonid data in to the SPAMS already shows we caught part of the November 17, ~06h UT (ZHRs ~90-100) and November 18, ~03h45m UT peaks here, though ZHRs for the latter time show a large scatter because of the poor sky conditions many people endured. These are of course only preliminary results at this stage. No sign of a Leonid storm anywhere at least, so we didn't miss that. Here, November 16-17 was mostly overcast until well after midnight. By 02h UT there were enough gaps to see occasional Leonids, and I started watching in clear skies by 02:35 UT, carrying on through until dawn twilight got too strong at 06:30 UT. Conditions were patchy at times, with a somewhat variable LM as haze moved through, and clouds were often a nuisance (up to 80% at one stage for about ten minutes, though I was still seeing odd Leonids in the gaps). At best, my LM was +5.5 despite the Moon, and I could just glimpse the brighter Milky Way in Cas at times. In around 4h, I spotted 91 meteors, 66 Leonids, with a few magnitude -1 to -2 events, though the brightest was a magnitude -3 at 06:06 UT. It's interesting that Casper reported the Dutch observers had also seen two very brilliant Leonids shortly before 06h UT. No very long-lasting trains in what I saw, which is not surprising with the general absence of fireballs. I also managed to spot all five naked-eye planets with the naked-eye that night, starting with Venus low in the SW at evening twilight, and ending with Mercury higher to the SE by dawn, so I was quite pleased overall. By contrast November 17-18 was useless for observing here. Quite a few stars and the Moon were visible through the thickening frontal clouds around 23h UT, plus a weak 22-degree lunar halo (22-d haloes were also commonly reported by the SPAMS watchers in SE England on this night, along with one report which must be spurious of a complete 46-degree lunar halo. It must be in error as the Moon was only ~40 degrees above the observer's horizon then!), but in ~20m of gazing at the sky on and off to ~23:45 UT (LM ~+4, clouds ~20%) I saw nothing meteoric. Hourly checks after that showed conditions worsening, and another ~20m "observing" ~03:40-04h UT with only the Moon, Jupiter and occasionally Capella glimpsed from time to time, revealed three possible faint Leonid streaks in the clouds. I wasn't convinced any were real. November 18-19 provided a brief one-hour break in the clouds I could use, from 02:42-03:42 UT. Leonid rates were still very evident, although with the Moon less of a problem, the observed rates remained about the same as November 16-17; the ZHR was lower though, at ~30-40 (compared with ~50-80 for much of November 16-17). Clouds encroached too soon, but it was useful to see something of the shower's declining activity. By November 19-20 Leonid rates were lower still, though the radiant wasn't very high when clouds plus the rising Moon ended my efforts just before 01:30 UT. ~