[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
(meteorobs) Quick Leonid Report: South Carolina
This will be a week I'll never forget, as for the past 6 days I have
been suffering from pneumonia and complaining of my poor luck at
getting ill right here at Leonid time. All of my initial plans were
scrapped as I thought I would not be able to monitor the shower in such
a way as to collect any useful data. I guess out of pity for my being
sick, the cloud gods decided to favor me with perfectly clear skies
(contrary to the past two years). So with plenty of antibiotics coursing
through my body, and codeine-flavored cough syrup coating my throat, I
took off to the observing site to meet up with the local group I had
planned on observing with. In the end, we were able to observe for a
little less than 5 hours from 0600-1100 UT (1:00-6:00 EST), in fairly
warm (48o F) weather.
The entire period was free of clouds with the exception of one 13-minute
period when a cloud bank passed overhead blocking 75% of the field of
view. During that clouded out time, 37 Leonids were seen backlighting
the clouds!
There were many fireballs scattered throughout the morning, the three
brightest being a pair of -9.0s plus one -10.0. All three left trains
with durations greater than one minute. Due to the number of meteors, I
was not able to keep up an accurate tally on train percentages/duration,
but would estimate that over 60% of the Leonids were trained.
I won't be able to get a complete look at the numbers I had until later
as I need some rest, and many reports are starting to come in. At the
time of strongest activity, I was seeing as many as 150+/10 minutes! For
the night, I guess I logged over 1,200 Leonids.....
Looking forward to hearing how everyone else did.
Mark Davis, sc.meteors@home.com
Goose Creek, South Carolina, USA
Coordinator
North American Meteor Network (NAMN)
NAMN Website: http://www.namnmeteors.org/
The archive and Web site for our list is at http://www.meteorobs.org
If you are interested in complete links on the upcoming LEONIDS, see:
http://www.meteorobs.org/storms.html
To stop getting email from the 'meteorobs' list, use the Web form at:
http://www.meteorobs.org/subscribe.html