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(meteorobs) Mt. Lemmon Leonids - - FANTASTIC ! !
Hello all,
The observing team on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, has now finished up a terrific
night of Leonid observations, having observed a broad and very strong
(~2500 m/hr ZHR) Leonid shower peak lasting from about 1045-1115 UT, and an
above half-power (> 1250 m/hr ZHR) width from about 1000-1130 UT). Rates
for the night began quite good (ZHR > 100 m/hr) and ended quite good (ZHR >
200 m/hr), with a very rich bright Leonid population throughout (many nice
fireballs).
The rates were determined by a team of visual observers, consisting of Jure
Atanakov, David Holman, Javor Kac, Tom Kucharski, Bob Lunsford, Ana Mancic,
and Jure Zakrajsek: all operating "smart-mice" feeding into a PC operated
by myself and using a program developed by Morris Jones to perform
real-time ZHR calculations from multiple observers (for the NASA Ames
Leonids campaign).
A preliminary graph can be seen at: http://www.leonids.arc.nasadot gov/
Best of Luck to the folks in Asia and Australia for a great second peak --
the first one was FANTASTIC!!
Jim Richardson
Fowarded from Dave Holman:
>Subject: [Wmeteors] Mt. Lemmon Leonids - - FANTASTIC ! !
>Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 04:35:15 -0800 (PST)
>
> In spite of my early gloom and doom report, we have had a wonderful night
>here at Mt. Lemmon. Clouds were present and pesky, but we had a nice clear
sky
>overhead for the peak with clouds at every horizon. Our ZHR climbed to
around
>2500 near 11 UT. Bob Lunsford commented that this return was better than
1999
>which he witnessed in Spain. We are still observing although the cloud cover
>has moved back over us.
> Jim Richardson is doing a super job managing the computer and collecting
>limiting magnitudes and Leonid magnitudes verbally. When the peak occurred
and
>there was virtually non-stop screaming, Jim came outside and was able to see
>meteors for the first time since 1993.
> Bob Lunsford must be credited with having the cool head and convincing
>everyone that it would be better to stick it out here than to hit the road
>searching for better skies. We would have probably gotten skunked if we had
>tried to relocate judging by the clouds all around our horizon at the peak.
> At the moment our ZHR is similar to a Perseid outburst, and quite
frankly it
>seems a little boring after what we've seen earlier.
>
>Dave
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Richardson
Department of Planetary Sciences
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 - 0092
LPL email: jrich@lpl.arizonadot edu
LPL office: (520) 621-6960
Home office: (520) 877-2715 or 877-2555
Cell phone: (520) 401-9095
Home page: http://www.lpl.arizonadot edu/~jrich/
Operations Manager
American Meteor Society (AMS)
AMS email: richardson@amsmeteors.org
AMS web site: http://www.amsmeteors.org/
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