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(meteorobs) group Meteor report from Assos.Turkey


well, i was NOT disappointed..infact, i was flabberhasted!!
monday night, after driving 7 hours and more than 360KM to the
south and west of istanbul, i managed to get 3 hours sleep from
10pm till 1 am..then went outside...in the first 15 minutes i saw
approximately 12 meteors that surely were Leonids and two that
came in from the west that definitely weren't Leonids!!

i stayed out till 3am when some high clouds moved in, and i felt
it was time to warm up a bit..i fell asleep till 5am..woke up spontaneously
to clear skies and a FANTASTIC show!! at one point, i'm sure i was seeing
about 30-40 per minute...i couldn't beleive it!! i didn't know where to look
first...
sometimes i saw 3 at once..and that was only in the direction i was able
to look at ... sometimes i caught 'flashes' of light from just out of the
corner of
my eye...dot it was better than a three - ring circus...i felt like a little
kid..

i made a conscious decision and 'agreement' with myself that i wouldn't try
to count to see HOW MANY..and just enjoy what i could see by looking in
one basic direction (toward the south). it made more sense because trying
to 'count' meant that i couldn't really be involved with 'seeing' the
meteors...and
that's what i wanted. so i stopped being interested in statistics...sorry..
but to the best of my abilities to 'count' i'd say that 25 per minute during
the
early, early morning hours was about right..

what amazed me was the variety...colors...i saw a couple of green
trails...and some
yellow and some orange-tinged..most however were 'white'...and the
speed..dot it
varied...some were fast, gone in a flash, some were slower and left great
long-lasting
vapor trails. one trail seemed to stay visible for more than a minute...and
i could even
see it get distorted as if by the 'wind'...i'm not sure if that's possible,
i think so..but
that's what i observed.

as for last night, (tuesdaynight...wednesday morning)..i was very
disappointed...and
quite exhausted!! if the 7 hour drive to Assos didn't whip me out and the
lack of a good
night's sleep, i also had to do some work on the Portable PC on
Tuesday..ugh...and i
was so tired wednesday night...i decided NOT to go out to the beach..the
walk was long
down a stony hill but it had rained during the afternoon and the ground was
very damp
and the wind had picked up and it was much colder than the previous
night..so i rigged
a viewing 'seat' on the balcony of my room and decided to 'see what i could'
from that
vantage point.. i was outside from 12:30am till about 2:45am...i think i
also fell asleep
for a few minutes..but the 'show' was less than spectacular. the strange
thing, on wednesday
morning, was that i saw a good portion of meteors coming from a direction
definitely NOT
from the radiant of Leo...these were all coming from about west-northwest
and headed
directly toward Sirius...does anyone know of a second 'shower' that was
taking place
at the same time as the Leonids? i'd say that in one hour, i saw no less
than 7-8 coming from
that direction..almost opposite the Leonids...i'm sure they weren't from the
same source..
besides, these were short and less brilliant...the Leonids were long, low
and brilliant..

i went inside and slept infront of the window, checking from time to time
and even at
4:45am, i didn't see nearly as many as i had the previous night...and
decided that things
had 'burnt themselves out' the previous night or in another partof the
globe...

still, i think it was an incredible experience...i remember schlepping my
kids out to see
Haley' comet years ago..(my grandmother told me that when she was a child in
eastern
europe, she saw it too)...and i remember dragging my kids out yet again to
see the Leonids from
the NJ shore when we lived for one winter right on the beach in a converted
summer rental
property while i went back to college...we didn't see much, but it was fun
to be there with the
kids....and two years ago, while traveling in the south of turkey with a
Kiwi friend of mine,
we saw 'the comet' just by chance as we came home late through the mountain
forests..
(somebody remind me the name of that one.dot it was WONDERFUL though)....and
now this
spectacular display..dot sigh....i'm so happy to be connected to internet and
able to gather so
much information about things like this..dot it's all rather amazing, isn't it?
to be able to share
this experience with so many people even though this time i was there all
alone...
just me and the cosmos!!!!!!

arlene in istanbul..



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