From: Denis V. Denissenko, Moscow, Russia
Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 10:00:10 +0300

Warm greetings to everybody from COLD Russia!!!  Now I guess I
understand why Leonids storm may become 'once-in-a-lifetime' event!
%-)))))  With -15.5C I couldn't bear it for more than twice an hour, but
still I saw 71 Leonids under VERY poor conditions.  The whole story goes
below.

First of all, wherever you are DO NOT wait till 3 o'clock after midnight
- you will miss dozens or even hundreds of Leonids!  I started observing
at 2:00 and the show was already going on at its best!  It was on my way
from home to observing place when I saw the most beautifully coloured
meteor of the night.  Yes, it was green (-1) mag, short one near the
radiant (inside Leo's head).  Very good for the beginning!  I had a
prejudice against Leonids before thinking they are all yellow or plain
white, yet very fast hense not spectacular.  This night made me change
my mind dramatically, even despite the sky was far from perfect.

I had to watch from a park inside city limits, yet there were lots of
clouds longing from east to west - now that it's morning they look like
feathers of a huge bird's wing covering the whole sky.  I'm afraid I've
lost 70-90% of possible meteors due to this - limiting magnitude was
hardly 3.5, yet it was varying with about 5 degrees period.  But this
produced very spectacular effect: when bright meteor flew across these
feathers, its brightness was pulsing which created an impression of
repeated flares!

But this wasn't the only thing I saw for the first time during this
night.  Another amazing sight was at 2:37 local time (23:37 UT) when -3
Leonid left 5' (five arcminutes!) wide train which was seen through the
clouds for more than 25 seconds slowly changing its shape.

As I told you it was hardly above 0F (is it -18C?), so I decided to take
a coffee break and walked back home.  During my first outdoor "session"
I saw 21 Leonids and 2 others - one definitely Taurid and the other
sporadic.  For those interested in formal details they are given at the
bottom of the message, though I told you determining Lm under conditions
like this was extremely problematic.  Anyways it was worse than 4.0, so
my observations are of no use for science.

OK, I fixed myself a cup of coffee and sat by the window of my room just
when the radiant was seen through it.  The field of view is restricted
by an 8-story building in front of me, and since I'm on the 2nd floor
only 20x60 degrees of the sky can be seen.  To my surprise I've spotted
12 Leonids in 45 minutes through the double window glass which wasn't
washed for a few months. :-)  One of that dozen - bluish 0m meteor -
passed exactly between Zeta and Epsilon UMa.  Just when I felt warm
enough to go outdoors once again something suddenly lightened the sky
and the face of the house before me - it was definitely the brightest
meteor of the night which I missed...  But in some 10 seconds after this
flash another beautiful (-1) flew before my eyes, and in 2 minutes
another -2m left wonderful blue-green train.  In a minute I was outside
again despite the frost.

Next 55 minutes brought 38 Leonids and 3 from other radiants (1 Taurid
again) despite more clouds arriving.  The brightest was -2m, but I
realize that I could have underestimated magnitudes of many meteors due
to this haze.  And the thrill of the last hour was another meteor I
missed!  It should have been bright bolid 'cause it has also caused a
flash in the sky like an electric spark.  When I turned back I saw in
Camelopardalis another mighty train, even wider and denser than the
first one 2 hours ago.  It had luck to occupy a clear patch between the
clouds, so I watched it evolving during more than a minute.  It became
helix-shaped in the end!!!

In a few minutes I caught myself at a thought that Leonids are never
flying in groups unlike Perseids.  And as it often happens when you
notice some trend, tendency or rule the very next event disproves your
theory!  Voila - in a minute I have two Leonids 1m and 2m separated by 2
seconds, and in 3 minutes more - three (2, 1 and 0m) within two
seconds!!!  Looked like the activity started increasing, but in the same
time clouds moved in from the south, so I had to go home again.  The
forcast for today is hopelessy bad, and I can see it with my own eyes
that we'll have snow already in a few hours.  Looks like Moscow had its
share of Leonids, now let the others see more!  As to me, sure I can't
be totally satisfied with what I have seen this night, still it was a
night to remember.  After all, I have only seen about 890 metors before
and never more than 105 during one night.  Now I'm getting closer to
1000 - perhaps one more night will do it.

And now back to promised technical details.  Unfortunately I didn't
write down magnitudes of first 12 meteors as well as that one I did not
actually see (I can only guess that it was -4 or brighter).  Non-Leonids
are not listed, too.

UT Nov.16/17   FOV    Teff  LEO
23:15-23:55  All sky  0.65   21
00:25-01:10  60ox20o  0.74   12
01:20-02:25  All sky  0.85   38
-------------------------------
   Total              2.25   71

Magnitude distribution of 58 Leonids out of 71 observed

-3 -2 -1  0  1  2  3  S
 1  2  3 14 16 21  1 58

I wish that some of you have totals of 5800 and more during the night of
17/18!  And let's wait for the news from Siberia - there's huge
anticyclone all over it, so clear skies are guaranteed, but it's -40