From: Joseph Assmus, San Diego, California 
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 10:13:01 GMT

brrrr.. it was cold.. greetings all.

  Just got back home from the local mountains of San Diego.  At the last
minute, my crazy Dutch neighbor, Arjen and I drove up to the Laguna
Mountains to observe the Leonids. Bob Lunsford met up with us 30 minutes
after we arrived.  My intention for the night was for a short casual fun
session with no formal data collection.

  The skies were absolutely crystal clear.. but it was cold (low40s F) and
there was a blistering northern wind the whole time which probably put the
"feel like" temp down to the 20s F.

  Using star count area #8 in Taurus, my LM was 6.1 (even with the moon on
the eastern horizon.  I observed for 2 hours 0630-0830 UT (due to work
considerations) and counted a total 25 meteors.

Time          Lm   Leo  Tau  Spo
0630-0730    6.1    4    1    4
0730-0830    6.1   12    1    3

  Because the radiant was so low, most all the LEOs were nice longish
grazers.. the longest being ~90-100 deg, no fireballs. One -2, One -1 and
the balance 0,1,2. (I collected no magnitude data tonite, though tomorrow, I
will).  All SPOs were quite dim (between mag 3 and 5)

  Its 2:03am (pacific time now).. Im going to bed. Bob is still up there
observing (and shivering) as I type this.  I look forward to hearing how the
rest of the night turned out.  We are expecting pristine clear skies again
tomorrow and since its a Friday night, I will observe all night and collect
formal observations for submission.

 ---
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 18:53:30 GMT

Leonids November 17/18, 2000.

Bob Lunsford and I observed a nice display from the Laguna Mountains in San
Diego California.  The air was cold (lo 30s F. the wind was not nearly as
bad as the previous night).  The sky was clear all night.

Some of the highlights:
- several beautiful Leonid earth grazers with path lengths well over
80-90deg
- An awesome -2 Leonid with that familiar *intense* turquois-blue
  shade.  For me, this these are partly what makes staying up all
  night worth it!
- A beautiful -2 Taurid with an absolutely pure orange hue
- The -3 and -4 Leonids I did see were on the edge of my visual field

Visual results obtained by Joseph Assmus
Lat:  32deg 49' 49" N
Lon: 116deg 29' 43" W

I faced East (azimuth 70deg) for the first 3 intervals, the turned around
and faced West (azimuth 70deg) forthe remainder of the night.

Interval        Teff    Lm      Leo     Tau     Spo     Tot
0700-0730       0.492   6.5     3       --      3       6
0730-0800       0.489   6.5     7       --      1       8
0800-0830       0.479   6.5     10      1       4       15
0830-0900       0.474   6.5     14      1       4       19
0900-0930       0.471   6.5     16      1       4       21
0930-1000       0.471   6.2     15      2       4       21
1000-1030       0.489   6.2     7       1       --      8
1030-1100       0.483   6.2     5       --      7       12
1100-1130       0.483   5.9     9       --      3       12
1130-1200       0.488   5.9     9       --      --      9
1200-1230       0.478   5.9     12      1       3       16
1230-1300       0.481   5.9     12      --      2       14

TOTAL           5.776   --      119     7       35      161


Magnitude Distribution

   -4  -3  -2  -1  0  1  2  3  4  5
Leo 1   1   2   4  9  7 22 43 23  7
Tau -   -   1   -  1  3  -  1  -  1
Spo -   1   -   -  3  4  3  7 12  5

All in all, a very very enjoyable session.  Bob traditionally sees more
meteors than I do, however, I turned to face west before he did and it
seemed like for that period I was seeing both more LEOs and SPOs than he.
Well, thats enough data crunching and typing. its 1100am, (bedtime-finally!)