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(meteorobs) The Leonids are falling!



Greetings!  This is a preliminary report of the Leonids as seen from Manila, approx. 14.5 deg N, 121 deg. E, 24 hours before the nodal crossing.

The Leonids are ROARING!  GO out and OBSERVE!

I went out at 3:40 a.m. local time (1940 UT), 24 hours before the expected peak, and boy, are the meteors flying fast and furious - I have been observing about a third of the sky, my northeastern part blocked by the house roof, but there were meteors and fireballs aplenty.   There were instances when there were 4 bright meteors per minute in a third of the sky. My limiting magnitude is 4 - 4.5 in the city (not bad, since rain in the evening washed away the pollution).  Had a good two hours of observations - the best meteor observing for me ever!

Fireballs were there aplenty in white, greenish-white, and yellow variations - I haven't had time to transcribe what I've taped but there were instances of 3-4 meteors flashing by the same direction in the sky in a span of 20 seconds.  Highlights of the 2-hour observing session (stopped when the clouds covered most of the sky and the sky started to turn blue):

- a mag. -10 fireball that literally lit the sky!  I was facing south when my glasses and the surroundings lit up with an eerie greenish-white light at ~4:23 a.m.  I turned around to the north and saw a very bright train diffusing across a cloud patch.  The train stayed there for about 20 seconds, and then faded into the cloud patch.  Had the cloud patch not been there, it would probably have been visible longer.  This fireball was moving north across the front paws of Ursa Major.

- a pair of two parallel greenish-white fireballs (mag. -5), separated by 5 seconds, flaring to the north-northwest, about 20 deg. above the horizon.

- three meteors in a span of 3 seconds: 2 mag. -3 white fireballs and a fainter, mag. 2 yellow meteor all going south, again about 20-40 degrees away from the horizon.

I'll need to transcribe my notes, but the Leonids are on the way to a peak, and if today's show tells something about the peak a day later, then we're in for quite a show.

And by the way, I also saw a bright white object (Iridium satellite?) shining at mag. -3, and passing south in Auriga that stayed at this brightness for about 4 seconds then quickly faded to obscurity.

As I'll be leaving today for Japan in a few hours, I'll be changing over to my office e-mail at lao.fg@pg.com

Best of luck and clear skies!


Jun Lao
Public Relations Officer and
Editor, The Appulse Newsletter
Philippine Astronomical Society
Manila 14.5 N 121 E To UNSUBSCRIBE from the 'meteorobs' email list, use the Web form at: http://www.tiacdot net/users/lewkaren/meteorobs/subscribe.html