(meteorobs) 1968 Leonids

[Skywayinc at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/13/2008 9:48:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
dougzubenel at gmail.com writes:
 
Can anyone tell me which morning in 1968 the Leonids peaked?  I was  out from
3 to 4 am PST on either the mornings of the 16th, 17th or 18th,  seeing
anywhere from 2 to 5 meteors per minute near the zenith - and this  from
light-blasted Woodland Hills, Calif. (a suburb of Los  Angeles).




In the January 1969 issue of Sky & Telescope, page  56, Kojito Komaki of 
Kanaya, Japan reported his best ZHR for the 1968 Leonids of  52 on November 17.76. 
 In the United States, five members of the  Astro-Gators club of 
Jacksonville, Florida reported seeing more than 15 Leonids  between 8:15 and 9:15 UT 
(corresponding to Nov. 17.344 to Nov. 17.385).  At  Wrightwood, California, Charles 
and Mars Capen each sighted nearly 100 Leonids  in the hour beginning at 
11:15 UT (Nov. 17.469).  Photographs by the Capens  of a bright Leonid on November 
17 and two of a trail that lasted  10-minutes from a November 18 Leonid that 
reached -6 magnitude were also  shown.
 
In the February 1969 S&T, page 124, was an article  written by Leif J. 
Robinson ("Leonids Give Impressive Display in 1968"), in  which both tabular data 
and a graph based on 18 observers submitting Leonid  counts over 38 time 
intervals, which were then reduced to ZHRs.  It thus  assessed that the maximum 
hourly rate reached about 110 Leonids near 11.7 hours  UT on November 17 (Nov. 
17.488).  According to S&T, this was half a day  later than the predicted maximum 
in the Handbook of the British Astronomical  Association and the Observer's 
Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society  of Canada. The S&T article went on 
to say that "Except for the 'great storm'  of 1966, the 1968 Leonid shower was 
probably the richest in recent years.   The strength of the shower in 1967 is 
very uncertain, however, because the full  moon made comparable counts 
impossible."
 
-- joe rao       



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