From: James W. Young, Wrightwood, California. Date: Subject: This very noteworthy meteor shower was nearly missed altogether, since the weather was cloudy all evening to past 2 AM. As has happened before and since, I awoke at 2:30 AM and looked at the clouds outside. I could see many meteors through the thinning clouds, so went to the observatory by 3 AM as the complete cloud cover dispersed! There were 2-5 meteors seen every second as we scrambled to set up the only two cameras we had, as no real preparations had been made for any observations or photography. The shower was expected to occurr over the European continent. The shower peaked around 4 AM, with some 50 meteors falling per second. We all felt like we needed to put on 'hard hats'! The sky was absolutely full of meteors...a sight never imagined...and never seen since! To further understand the sheer intensity of this event, we blinked our eyes open for the same time we normally blink them closed, and saw the entire sky full of streaks...everywhere! A 'fireball' is an extremely bright meteor, sometimes bright enough to read a newspaper. During this shower, we recorded 22 such meteors, all within 1 1/2 hours. It is estimated that the average person sees 4 'fireballs' in their lifetime. The above 'fireball' cast heavy shadows for about 6 seconds, and the luminous train left by it lasted about 10-12 minutes. We photographed over a thousand meteors in 90 minutes. This same meteor shower is expected to produce a fairly substaintual event this November 1998, but probably in the Far East. If you are interested, look for this event 2 days on either side of November 17, 1998. It is also possible that the same time period in 1999 will produce a similar shower. However, in any case, predictions indicate showers far, far less intense than the 1966 event. But as I learned in 1966, it is better to be ready for something spectacular...that way the only thing you lose, will be sleep! Table Mountain Observatory, operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is located just west of the town of Wrightwood, California at an elevation of 7500 feet. James W. Young