(meteorobs) Leonids from Arizona

[Skywayinc at aol.com]

Received this e-mail from Robert Britt, Senior Science Writer at SPACE.com. 
Rob lives in Arizona.  -- joe rao

Hi Joe:
>From reasonably dark skies north of Phoenix, I saw 15 meteors in two
short early-morning observing sessions (about 20 minutes overall) on
Nov. 19, 2004. Of these, 10 were Leonids. Two of the Leonids were
bright, one with a long blue-white trail that lingered for about a
second and one with a short, greenish trail that lasted perhaps two
seconds; both of these were about magnitude minus 1 or minus 2. The
others were mostly dim. Between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. local time
(7:30-7:45 ET) I counted 8 Leonids; that's an estimated hourly rate of
32 -- higher than the 10 that was predicted, and I did my observing
several hours after the predicted peak. Goes to show meteor showers
still are hard to forecast, I guess.