From: Arlene C. Brill, Istanbul, Turkey
Date: Nov. 19, 1998 

Well, i was NOT disappointed..infact, i was flabberhasted!!
monday night, after driving 7 hours and more than 360KM to the
south and west of istanbul, i managed to get 3 hours sleep from
10pm till 1 am..then went outside...in the first 15 minutes i saw
approximately 12 meteors that surely were Leonids and two that
came in from the west that definitely weren't Leonids!!

i stayed out till 3am when some high clouds moved in, and i felt
it was time to warm up a bit..i fell asleep till 5am..woke up spontaneously
to clear skies and a FANTASTIC show!! at one point, i'm sure i was seeing
about 30-40 per minute...i couldn't beleive it!! i didn't know where to look
first... sometimes i saw 3 at once..and that was only in the direction i was able
to look at ... sometimes i caught 'flashes' of light from just out of the
corner of my eye....it was better than a three - ring circus...i felt like a little
kid..

i made a conscious decision and 'agreement' with myself that i wouldn't try
to count to see HOW MANY..and just enjoy what i could see by looking in
one basic direction (toward the south). it made more sense because trying
to 'count' meant that i couldn't really be involved with 'seeing' the
meteors...and that's what i wanted. so i stopped being interested in statistics...
sorry.. but to the best of my abilities to 'count' i'd say that 25 per minute during
the early, early morning hours was about right..

what amazed me was the variety...colors...i saw a couple of green
trails...and some yellow and some orange-tinged..most however were 
'white'...and the speed...it varied...some were fast, gone in a flash, some 
were slower and left great long-lasting vapor trails. one trail seemed to 
stay visible for more than a minute...and i could even see it get distorted 
as if by the 'wind'...i'm not sure if that's possible, i think so..but that's 
what i observed.

as for last night, (tuesdaynight...wednesday morning)..i was very
disappointed...and quite exhausted!! if the 7 hour drive to Assos didn't whip 
me out and the lack of a good night's sleep, i also had to do some work on 
the Portable PC on Tuesday..ugh...and i was so tired wednesday night...
i decided NOT to go out to the beach..the walk was long down a stony hill 
but it had rained during the afternoon and the ground was very damp and 
the wind had picked up and it was much colder than the previous night..
so i rigged a viewing 'seat' on the balcony of my room and decided to 'see 
what i could' from that vantage point.. i was outside from 12:30am till 
about 2:45am...i think i also fell asleep for a few minutes..but the 'show' 
was less than spectacular. the strange thing, on wednesday morning, 
was that i saw a good portion of meteors coming from a direction
definitely NOT from the radiant of Leo...these were all coming from about 
west-northwest and headed directly toward Sirius...does anyone know of 
a second 'shower' that was taking place at the same time as the Leonids?
 i'd say that in one hour, i saw no less than 7-8 coming from that direction..
almost opposite the Leonids...i'm sure they weren't from the same source.. 
besides, these were short and less brilliant...the Leonids were long, low
and brilliant..

i went inside and slept infront of the window, checking from time to time a
nd even at 4:45am, i didn't see nearly as many as i had the previous night...
and decided that things had 'burnt themselves out' the previous night or 
in another partof the globe...

still, i think it was an incredible experience...i remember schlepping my
kids out to see Haley' comet years ago..(my grandmother told me that 
when she was a child in eastern europe, she saw it too)...and i remember 
dragging my kids out yet again to see the Leonids from the NJ shore 
when we lived for one winter right on the beach in a converted summer 
rental property while i went back to college...we didn't see much, but it 
was fun to be there with the kids....and two years ago, while traveling 
in the south of turkey with a Kiwi friend of mine, we saw 'the comet' 
just by chance as we came home late through the mountain forests.. 
(somebody remind me the name of that one..it was WONDERFUL though)....
and now this spectacular display...sigh....i'm so happy to be connected 
to internet and able to gather so much information about things like this...
it's all rather amazing, isn't it? to be able to share this experience with 
so many people even though this time i was there all alone...
 just me and the cosmos!!!!!!