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(meteorobs) Florida Leonids, GRALE, 15/16 Nov 1999


The NASA/ESA/USAF/CRESTech/LEOC/UWO observing campaign began in earnest
last night with video data collected during 0500-1000UT, reported along
with my own visual Leonid summary to the Marshall Space Flight Center at
hourly intervals... I'm unfortunately left on my own for the visual, so
I had to keep a running total of Leonids AND their magnitudes in my head
during each hour interval, then divide by hand at each reporting period!

Luckily, LEO rates never went above 10: this will be impossible tonight!


High science, indeed. :) Anyway, I also recorded full IMO data, which I
transcribed and have summarized below. Most notable to me is the extreme
faintness of the LEOs relative to Sporadics for the night! Where are the
"low-r" Leonids of former years?? My understanding was that only a very
narrow "storm component" might display a somewhat high population index,
and only on the night of the actual storm peak IF it were even visible!

Oh well, this may just be a statistical artifact of a small sample size?
Or do current models in fact call for the "background" Leonid component
to come from a predominantly low-mass part of the stream this year??

Data Summary:
Lew Gramer GRALE, 15/16 Nov 1999, Long Key FL USA, 24:49 N, 80:49 W, 0m

# Start End   CFV    Teff  LM   F     LEO  NTA  STA  Tau  AMO  Spor TOTAL
1 4:40  4:59  430+20 0.32  7.45 1.000 0    2    0    0    0    2    4
2 5:00  5:59  430+20 0.98  7.50 1.037 4    0    2    1    1    13   21
3 6:00  6:59  630+20 0.98  7.46 1.013 5    1    2    0    0    19   27
4 7:00  7:59  630+20 0.98  7.42 1.000 7    3    3    0    3    15   31
5 8:00  8:59  730+05 0.98  7.39 1.000 10   1    1    4    2    18   36
6 9:00  9:59  730+05 0.98  7.27 1.000 10   3    0    0    2    15   30
7 10:00 10:20 730+05 0.20  7.20 1.000 0    0    0    0    0    4    4
TOTALS               5.42  7.40 1.009 36   10   8    5    8    86   153
Average Magnitudes                    3.74 3.30 2.94 4.00 3.94 3.44 3.52

Magnitude Distributions:
       -1   0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    TOTAL
LEO    0.5  1    1.5  2.5  8    11   8.5  3    0    36
NTA    0    0    0    3    2    4    1    0    0    10
STA    0    0    2    2    1    1    1.5  0.5  0    8
Tau    0    0    0    1    0.5  1    2.5  0    0    5
AMO    0    0    0    1    1.5  2.5  3    0    0    8
Spor   3    2    3.5  12   16   23   22   3.5  0    85
TOTAL  3.5  3    7    21.5 29   42.5 38.5 7    0    152

(Note: Magnitude for one Sporadic lost in transcription.)

Clear skies everyone, these next two are the big nights!
Lew Gramer


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