From: Kearn Jones, Adelaide, Australia 
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 09:38:23 +1030


Went out (solo) to dark site near 34.5 south 139 east (400 mtrs) to
hopefully view LEO's - only saw total of 5 LEO's in over two hours of teff -
but saw high activity from small area of the southern milky way as i was
looking high N/E for LEO's - at first i thought it was just usual sporadics
but when a couple of them again caught my eye, i turned to look and i was
looking at an asterism which i thought for a second was Musca, but quickly
realised it wasnt right.

 While i was looking at this asterism, right in the centre, i saw what
appeared to be a 1.5 sec lasting +2 supernova which left no star in its
place! But of course it must of been a head on meteor (Point meteor?) i
continued to get most of meteors of the night roughly from this area, even
though i was centred NE. Upon reflection after i got home, i thought to
check for a shower from this area. i came up with the possibility that they
were Puppid/Velids. The Musca like asterism i think it was seems to be
centred around 08hr 45 min  -45 with lambda Vela on the top corner of
asterism, from my view. I will check it out  at the same time tomorrow if
possible, to see if i am correct about the asterism and its position. I read
that the 10 degree diameter radiant of the Puppid/Velids is around 08 hr 12
min  - 45 .  Active from dec 1st - dec 15th with max activity on 7 th dec
with a ZHR of 10.

These are the ones that crossed into my high NE centred view, from my right

1:50 am - 2:17 am 4 possible Puppid/Velids (ACDST 20th nov) 15% cloud cover
2:30 am - 3:00 am 5 possible Puppid/Velids                  15% cloud cover
3:01 am - 3:31 am 5 possible Puppid/Velids                  40% cloud cover

1:50 am 20th Nov ACDST = 15:20 19th nov 03 UT

They were white in colour and around the +2 to +3 in mag , swiftish but
medium long, some travelled about 50* - 60* heading north and north west
mostly, no trains. ZLM was around 6.5 at these times (high thin cirrus
again) and 5.5 at horizon. There were a few more meteors from this area
outside of these times, but these are the ones i wrote down.

Come to think of it, all these 6 and half years we have going out to see the
big  - ( mostly north favouring - but hey! we get the centre of our galaxy
at zenith mid winter, the mage's, and Q4 and T7 next year ect., so im not
complaining too much :-) )  -  "Blockbuster" meteor showers there has often
been  a lot of activity from southern areas, but we only looked at them as a
side entertainment and marked them down as sporadics usually. Some of them
certainly could of been shower members - will have to start taking them more
seriously.

Will write leonid report later :  best leonid was -5 smoking earthgrazer
that headed west over the horizon - at least 75* degree path- at around 3:15
am acdst  16:45 19th UT