From: Jeremie VAUBAILLON, Paris, France Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 15:24:05 +0100 I did my first visual meteor count this year (I mean, my first "scientific visual observation", i.e. leading to a report...) because of (or thanks to) clouds above our observing area in south of France. Indeed, one hour before the expected maximum, some clouds came from Ventoux mountains and we were afraid no data to collect in our video camera. So some of us drived a while, looking for clear skies. Finally, a quarter before 4:00 UT, clouds disapeared above our video cameras, so we hope to have recorded the maximum... Because of this rush, I had to choose between science and art : I did no photo :-( I was also a bit upset not to see any Earthgrather (because of clouds once again), nor fireball like last year in South Korea. The place we observed (visualy) could be better : we had a few trees obstructing the view. But we could not do another way : it was compromising task between time, clouds, Moon and mountains... Anyway, Leonids are allways surprising, and that is a part of their beauty ! Here is my report. I did only a simple one minute count (The exact location (thanks to GPS) is : 43?50'44.3" N, 5?24'15.2" E, 556m) ================== Observer: Jeremie VAUBAILLON Place: BUOUX, FRANCE (Lat 43.8 N, long 15.4 E) Time: 3:54-4:25, 19 Nov 2002 UT. Effective time: 100% Limiting mag.: +4.5 Field obstructions: 10% Direction faced: Draco (RA=11:00, DEC=70.0) - -- ONE MINUTE COUNTS STARTING 03:54 UT 03:54 7 03:55 9 03:56 9 03:57 9 03:58 10 03:59 10 04:00 12 04:01 11 04:02 12 04:03 6 04:04 14 04:05 7 04:06 13 04:07 9 04:08 13 04:09 9 04:10 13 04:11 9 04:12 13 04:13 BREAK 04:15 10 04:16 2 04:17 8 04:18 7 04:19 4 04:20 15 04:21 10 04:22 8 04:23 7 04:24 7 ================== As there is no magnitude measure here (shame on me....), I am unable to deduce a ZHR. I wish r~ 2.0, because it would best fit our predictions, but for now, I only have to wait for IMO results...