From: Chester S. Gardner, University of Illinois
Date: November 17, 1997


The Gods smiled upon us last night and provided exceptionally clear weather
above Urbana. Our Na wind/temperature lidar operated continuously from dusk
till dawn and was able to collect data during the peak of the Leonids. In
fact we are continuing our observations throughout the rest of the day. It
is rare for us to have clear weather in November!!! It will be several
weeks before we can anlayze the data but if the meteor rate did increase
then we should see the effects in our observations. The signal levels were
extremely strong (over 700 counts/shot from the whole Na layer) so there
does appear to a correlation of increasing Na densities during the shower.