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(meteorobs) leonids have arrived in jordan
hi very one,
I
just came to my computer, where I was camping in the desert for the last
three days. from 16-18/11/1998.
we were expecting to have
some activity in that night and to have a good shower on the 17/18/11/1998. but
it was a surprise to us.
on the night
16/17-11-1998, we started observing at around 21.00 ut . from the start. we
could see that there is a good activity. the first hour was ok having around
30-40 meteor, then as soon as we were moving in time, the activity increased,
two hours before dawn ( 01.00 ut ) we could not follow up with the meteors. many
meteors ( 4-6 ) were coming at the same time with the same
mag.
i saw 781 meteors from 21.00 - 03.15
ut, my figures where
medium between the teem, where I had to go out for 45 minutes before the peak (
00.00 - 00.45), so I guess, I missed around 100-150 meteors easily. my
colleagues could see up to 1000 and little more ( 1045 ) in the period from
21.00 - 003.00 ut.
the meteors were so
bright that the least bright meteor was with 1 mag, around 250 fireballs with
mag -5 were seen by eng. khalil konsul, the president of the society. the
meteors were so bright, smoking , leaving trails that stayed till more than one
minute and many meteor trails stayed to 3-5 minutes.trail length were around 8
degrees.
most of the meteors were
light green, white, and some were coloured and few had the whole rainbow colours
in it, all the team saw fireball and meteors that started white, then yellow,
then orange, then red, then green them blue then white again.
most of the meteors were flashing at
the right, left , above,and behind as (on the western horizon
).
the meteors were devided into two
groups short ones that were near to the radiant point and long ones that were
staring from the zenith, many long ones crossed from the horizon to the horizon
and we were used to meteors that was crossing > 90 degrees in the
sky.
wiered meteors has been seen many
times, where one meteors was going left ( to the big dipper ) and then it
turned and went backward ( to the southern horizon ), two - three red ones were
seen , many meteors were walking over the horizon ( were seen 5-10 degrees above
the eastern horizon ).
one meteors had fragmented four times,
it was seen as if it was flashing four times, one fireball left a trail that was
increasing in length from 4 degrees to 12 degrees. generally, the trail that was
left by fireballs had a mag of around one or two . many meteors were seen as if
they were diving in a swimming pool, ( I.e making a curve in their path ). many
"bombs" were seen in the peak time, the meteors were falling from leo
and explode over the horizon, we have seen these bombs many times (
reaching around 10-15 times. )
fireballs were seen
abundantly, one huge fireball, was seen before around 20.30 ut, where it
was moving slowly radiating from leo moving 10 degrees over the northern
horizon, we could estimate its radius, where it was around 0.35 -0.4 degrees,
its mag was around -8 _ -9, and when were ending our watch a huge
fireball exploded over the western horizon, it was burning red. with a mag of
around -12 it looked like two drops inside each other, where the outer drop was
a mix of red, green, blue colour, while the inner drop was like a
fire.
below you will see a
rough drawing for it.
this is all of my fast reaction to the
leonids on 16/17/11/1998.
we will report a full report later with
my colleague Mohammed odeh.
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/ /\ \ ------------ red, green, blue
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/ /
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----|---|-------------- fire, exploding fireball.
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Khaled M.
Tell
Meteor Observing Committee
Jordanian Astro. Soc. (JAS)
.
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