From: "Robert Lunsford, San Diego" Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 After a clear day cirrus rolled in at dusk and threatened my plans to observe tonight. I woke at 10:00pm PST and the sky was partly overcast. It was better than I expected but I still needed more sleep so I went back to bed and rose again at 1:00am. The sky was better so I hopped in the truck and drove to darker skies. I saw two bright Leonids while driving so things looked promising. I began counting at 2:00am and my first two meteors were Alpha Monocerotids. Leonid activity started off slowly but the hour still ended with ten shower members. This rate continued until 3:30am when Leonid activity really took off. Between 3:30 and 3:35, 14 Leonids were recorded. These were rates I was expecting for an entire hour so I was pleasantly surprised. Most of these Leonids were bright during this short burst with the brightest being -3. For the next half hour rates went back to normal. Then at 4:09, another "mini-outburst" occurred when 12 Leonids were seen in six minutes. Once again these Leonids were brighter than those seen during the time of normal rates. During times of normal activity most of the Leonids were faint, with +3's, +4's and +5's dominating. In all, I recorded 68 Leonids with a average magnitude of +2.21. This is much fainter than the average for the first two nights. Other shower activity was low. The sporadic activity was strange with hourly rates of 11, 5 and 15. That last hour was really hopping as a total of 44 meteors was recorded. Good thing I was using a cassette recorder to record data or I would have never kept up! November 19, 2004 1000-1100 UT 1.00 6.57 3 AMO 1 ANT 10 LEO 11 SPO 25 TOTAL 1100-1200 UT 1.00 6.58 0 AMO 2 ANT 30 LEO 5 SPO 37 TOTAL 1200-1300 UT 1.00 6.59 1 AMO 0 ANT 28 LEO 15 SPO 44 TOTAL TOTALS: 3.00 6.58 4 AMO 3 ANT 68 LEO 31 SPO 106 TOTAL The first column gives the period watched in Universal Time (UT) which is PST + 8 hours. The second column gives the percent of that particular hour actually spent observing the sky (1.00 = 100%, 0.99 = 99%). Time is lost for breaks and plotting. No breaks were taken tonight. A cassette recorder was used for data entry during this session. The third column gives the average limiting magnitude estimated during each period. The last several columns list the activity for expected active radiants during each period. Quite often no activity is observed and rates equal zero. Tonight I was facing east with my field of view centered at 50 degrees altitude. AMO = Alpha Monocerotids. ANT = Antihelion radiant (Taurids), LEO = Leonids and SPO = Sporadics (random activity). Location: Alpine Viewpoint 116 40' W 32 50' N, Elevation = 850m Bortle Scale Estimate: Class 4: Rural / Suburban Transition Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity: 50 F (10 C) 64% Ending " " " 48 F (9 C) 66% MAGNITUDES OF INDIVIDUAL METEORS PER RADIANT: AMO: 0 (0) +1 (1) +2 (1) +3 (1) +4 (1) +5 (0) AVG: +2.50 ANT : 0 (0) +1 (2) +2 (1) +3 (0) +4 (0) +5 (0) AVG: +1.33 LEO: -3 (1) -2 (1) -1 (4) 0 (5) +1 (12) +2 (15) +3 (10) +4 (13) +5 (7) +6 (0) AVG: +2.21 SPO: 0 (2) +1 (4) +2 (4) +3 (7) +4 (8) +5 (6) AVG: +3.06