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Re: (meteorobs) Re: NWM 1966 Leonid storm night
Thanks for the repost, Norm.
.dot it's hard to get folks outta bed to watch a meteor shower if ya can't
promise space ships falling from the sky, but I'll do my best........
--- nmcleod@peganet.com wrote:
> This is a repost of my 1966 experience with the
> Leonids, with a few other
> notes, originally sent 1998 Oct 25. Gregg can pick
> and choose from it.
> Meanwhile we have many new subscribers since then.
> The post begins here:
>
> Late evening of 1966 Nov 16 I went downstairs in the
> dormitory at Florida
> State. Someone then informed me that a group of
> students had gotten wind of
> a big meteor shower coming and that they were
> already up on the sun deck
> observing. This being around 11 PM, I knew they
> were much too early as the
> radiant was just below the horizon in the ENE. So I
> went to the sun deck
> myself to witness the eager group waiting for
> action. I told them it was
> too early and to wait until after 2 AM. But I doubt
> if anyone lasted long
> enough to see anything ; it was nap time for me
> until 2 o'clock. (Adding
> this in 1999 : location Tallahassee, Florida,
> latitude 30N, longitude 84W.)
>
>
> From Bob Lunsford:
> >I was out on the morning of November 17, 1966 yet
> it was a few hours
> >too early. Thinking the sky would be full of
> meteors I was unimpressed
> >by the meteor that shot overhead every 10 seconds
> or so. A few months
> >later I discovered what I had missed by going back
> to bed.
>
> Bob's perception has always been about twice mine,
> so I will assume the time
> he had this experience corresponds to the period in
> which my Leonid rate
> reached 3/minute, which was right about 4:30 AM EST,
> or 1:30 AM PST where
> Bob was. My rate of 6/minute didn't start until 5
> AM. Magnitude-only
> recording began at 5:03 AM, then without times after
> 5:19 AM. In the period
> 5:19 to 6:00 I recorded 361 meteors, finishing at
> about 30/minute as dawn
> and fog combined to end the show. It was a very
> steady rain of meteors, one
> each two seconds, with none simultaneous and no
> bunching seen. During that
> 40 minutes I saw two -5's and four -4's ; these
> acted like punctuation
> marks within the display.
>
> The following evening the local newspaper had a
> short article on the front
> page headlined "Meteor Shower Fizzles." It was
> the usual confirmation
> that the public needs a much stronger or brighter
> event than an astronomer
> in order to be impressed. The peak came after
> sunrise ; it just couldn't be
> observed. It was too foggy for the next few hours
> to try for daylight
> Leonids, plus I was pooped. I was just thankful the
> fog held off until dawn.
>
> Soon after that I thought about how sad it would be
> for new people to get
> interested in meteors during 1967. I was born in
> 1946 and began meteors in
> 1960, so I was fortunate to have a few years
> experience in time for the 1966
> Leonids.
>
> From Bob:
> >Regarding the actual 66 display, regardless whether
> the rates were
> >150,000 or less per hour, it was definitely a
> stupendous display of
> >astronomical fireworks! That much can be agreed
> upon.
>
> Why not just make it clear that the observed rate
> was 40/second? That
> generates the 150000/hr figure. Leonids tend to be
> brighter than average,
> so about that rate should have been available in
> LM6.5 sky. I don't see any
> reason to dispute the original numbers ; they did
> what they had to do to
> reach a consensus on the peak rate. People not
> versed in ZHR's need not get
> into that here, and are naturally interested in what
> was actually seen.
>
> When can the first Leonid of the night be seen? In
> the previous epoch the
> year 1974 had the last good display. I started
> observing at 10:16 PM EST
> Nov 16/17, but the first Leonid didn't appear until
> 12:12 AM. It was an
> orange +1m with 3-second train, but it went 120
> degrees in 8 seconds ! I
> judged the train by how long it took a point in the
> middle of the long wake
> to vanish. The final hour that night had 40
> Leonids, a total surprise. The
> time to get the first meteor from a rising radiant
> looks similar to the Eta
> Aquarids in May, when I had to wait every night
> about 40 or so minutes after
> radiant-rise to see anything from it. A Leonid
> storm obviously ought to
> produce something much sooner.
>
> Norman
>
> Norman W. McLeod III
> Asst Visual Program Coordinator
> American Meteor Society
>
> Fort Myers, Florida
> nmcleod@peganet.com
>
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===
Gregg.................
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