(meteorobs) Leonids Report

 

  This is my first post here. I have been reading with great interest all of the messages for the past month. And of course I was eagerly awaiting the Leonids. Well the night of 11/16 was a no go, thanks to clouds and rain. I live in Vacaville, CA; which is about 50 miles east of San Francisco. Anyway we were hyped for the night of 11/17. We had the camera, chairs, etc.

    However when I got up at 1:30 the clouds were blowing in. But we decided to go anyway. And I'm glad we did, the clouds were gone by 3:00 and it was a beautiful night.

We saw a total of 136 meteors between 3:00 and 6:00 at least 90% were leonids. 12 were really bright (-8: I'm still trying to get the rating system down)only a few were as dim as the stars. And there were 8 sets of 2 to 4 each that came virtually at the same moment. Awesome! There was also several that had visible trains for 5 seconds or so. Also atl least 1 Bright pointer.

    Well, it may not be what some would call outstanding but it was the best collection of meteors that I have seen. An average of one meteor every 1.3 minutes.(not 40/minute but pretty cool)

                                                                                 -Scott Freedlun-