From: Joe Rao, New York
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 10:47:43 EST

Skies finally cleared during the overnight hours over western Long Island, New
York.
I was out from 08:20 to 10:20 UT (3:20 to 5:20 a.m. EST).  I took a ten-minute
break, for a total viewing time of 110 minutes.  The view from my backyard is
not the best for meteor observation.  I had only roughly 60% of the sky
visible, chiefly toward the south and west.  Limiting magnitude was +4 to 4.5.
Total: 8 Leonids, 1 Northern Taurid, 3 Sporadics.  Obviously, despite the
close proximity of Earth to the comet's descending node (nodal crossing having
occurred only 13-15 hours earlier), it appears that the main swarm of activity
actually passed by during Monday and Monday evening.

I hope many of you read my comments last concerning the predictions that put
great emphasis on the 19:43 UT nodal crossing time. . . and my warning that
based on a similar Earth-comet geometry in 1932 and 1965, that the Leonid peak
this year could be as much as 1/2 day earlier than expected.  It appears now,
that the shower was indeed early -- by a good 15 hours!

None of the Leonids I saw could be classified as a true fireball, although
there was one flaring yellowish meteor that crossed through the stars of
Cancer (time not noted) that was on the order of -3 to -4 magnitude and left a
nice vapor trail that lasted about 10 seconds.

All the while I was hoping for one of those -10 to -15 monsters that so many
reported seeing the past couple of nights but none ever materialized.

I hope to have an analysis and a prediction (yes, Rao, move the turkey over
and stick your neck out on that chopping block) as to what we can expect to
see in 1999 sometime within the next week.

As the Dodger fans used to say in Brooklyn: "Just wait til' next year!"