From: Steven Kolins, central North Carolina 
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 06:33:55 -0500


Leonids were pretty good from central North Carolina

I suppose the seeing conditions could have been worse. We had thin
clouds and of course the moon to lighten them.

My wife and I went out around 4am and stayed out most of the time until
6:15am. After roughly 6 am dawn light was clearly causing some
brightening but it seemed even within that effect that the peak had
passed. I would guess at a peak around 5:45 am at around 1 per second.
Of course with all the light there must have been many more meteors!

I could easily see all the main stars of Leo so I'm guessing visibility
around Mag 4?

We saw two meteors brighter than Venus, several near the brightness of
Jupiter and a great many below that - one that seemed to break up
alittle as it came in. Several left trails that lasted a few seconds.

But overall I think last years experience was better - though I think
this years numbers would have proved better if it weren't for the moon.
I guess the remarkble thing is that even with a full Moon and some
clouds that it was nearly as impressive as last year!

It would have been nice to be surprised by an 1833 size storm (deluge!)

Has anyone seen any reviews of the comet trail theory applied to the
1833 storm?