From: Donn Mukensnable, Fremont Peak Observatory, CA 
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:25:28 +0000 (GMT)


 Tired, but very happy to have seen the best meteor storm in the better part
of a century. At the peak, we SAW that 1000/hr rate, and it was specatular in
the purest sense of the word!

 Not without a little melodrama, however.  After being clear during the day
and a hint of cirrus at sunset, the sky clouded almost completely over at
about 9pm.  This wasn't the usual coastal fog (that was there, too, but 1500
feet below the observatory) but thick nimbus.  Once again, it seemed the
fickle nature of Nature had thwarted our observing plans.  Some folks gave up
 and drove east for clearer skies.  We stuck it out at Fremont Peak.

 Around 12:30~1am (the winds aloft moved slowly) the clouds disappeared to
the east, revealing a pitch-black sky ablaze with shooting stars.  They were
coming in at Perseid rates then, creating long streaks of fire across the
sky, with the brighter ones leaving luminous trains that lasted for minutes
afterward.  This was a nice shower, very comparable to the Leonids of past
years.  Then it turned 2am...

 It was like the cosmic dustbin finally got shaken out.  Rapidly, the arrival
rate soared into triple digits and series of meteors, one after another,
started to appear.  Many of these were brighter as well, ending their trip
into the atmosphere with a flash of light that cast shadows on the ground
and caused the assembled crowd of observers to "ooh" and "aaahhh" along with
the occasional gleeful "WOW, that was a Bright Leonid!".  Gazing towards Leo,
 which rested on the horizon, one could see meteors streaming up into the sky
like a fireworks display.  The radiant was clearly defined by little spike of
light all around it.  Seeing multiple meteors in the sky suddenly became
commonplace, as was picking out the streaks of light in whatever direction
you were looking.  Series of related flashes appeared, as did multiple
 entries one after another on almost the same path across the brilliant
constellations of Taurus, Gemini, and Orion.  The winter Milky Way streamed
overhead as the meteors came still faster.

 There was a team of volunteers from NASA,  observing in a classic 'eight
points of the compass plus zenith' pattern who used a series of standard PC
mice connected into a laptop to record counts.  Left button was a Leonid;
right button everything else, which included not a few Taurids.  The shouts
of "yow" and "amazing" tapered off, not because there was less to see, but
because there was more.  First magnitude fire streaked across the sweep of
the galaxy simultaneously; looking to the far south and west gave the
appearance of a storm of light falling on the earth.  Every few minutes came
 a brilliant flash and a luminous line that quickly contorted into a curlicue.
 My favorite was an (estimated -9) bolide that flashed white, then green, then
 violet before disappearing in a momentarily blinding flash.  This one was
close to the radiant and highly foreshortened.  I could see the 'core' of
meteoric dust clearly within this cloud of ionized atmosphere that surrounded
it. Other meteors were seen to split in mid-passage, flying off on new paths
or splitting into chunks.   We watched the heavens in awe.  Highest ZHR
recorded at our station was 880+, with several clumps that easily reached
1000/hr of bright meteors.  There were either very few faint ones, or the
were missed in the rest of the fireworks display.

 Someone asked for a time check, and it was a quarter to four.  Finally the
Leonids had slacked off a little.  Back to 'only' ~200/hr; the difference was
 obvious.  Even so, the 'big ones' kept coming and there were several trains
in the sky at once.  There was time to observe other things now, like the
constant glimmer of Canopus hovering over the due-south gap in the hills and
 the ghostly cone of Zodaical Light that stretched from the now 45-degree high
 Leo to the horizon.  Time, too, to glimpse Jupiter and Saturn and Vesta (hiding
among the Hyades) between the seemingly constant flashes of light.
One brilliant Leonid outshone Jupiter at -4 before streaking behind the Peak
and then exploding to backlight the mountain.

 Predictions were for a secondary peak that Asia would encounter, but we did
not see any ramp up in counts as the night passed and a hint of twilight
began to seep into the eastern horizon at the same time another band of
clouds appeared in the west.  One way or another, the curtains were being
drawn down on a phenomenal display of the Great Leonid Storm of 2001.  We
closed the observatory and went back to our sleeping bags just as Venus rose
ruby-red and twinkling madly in the dawn horizon haze.  Jupiter and Saturn and
Orion were beginning to fade overhead.

This night of the long meteors was certainly something to be remembered
always.


WOW!  Another bright Leonid...