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(meteorobs) the greatest experience in my life

I'd like to share my experience from Manila, Philippines. This
was on the night of November 18-19, local time.

I was in the PAGASA Astronomical Observatory in Quezon City
with a group of friends to see the much-publicized meteor shower.
I came without expectations of anything spectacular - I was just
there to see how many I could count.

Well, the night started out disappointingly. There were lots of media
people who were flashing lights, that I wanted to throw them all out
of the observatory for disrupting our observations, but of course I
didn't have the authority to. There were almost a thousand guests
who, like me and my friends, went to the observatory to see whatever
they could - there was almost no space left to lie on. Our group was
the more dedicated though, since we stayed overnight, long after the
media and many of the other watchers had left.

Early meteors were long and spectacular. One meteor was said to
have a magnitude of -7 and was visible for about 3-4 seconds, and
left a trail like that of a jet plane that was visible for nearly half a
minute! They were long in between, though, since from 10 pm to
12 midnight I only counted 13 meteors.

Most of these are not part of the shower though, since tracing
them back do not point to Leo's sickle. Besides, Leo hasn't even
risen yet at that time.

All times I mention are in Philippine Standard Time, which is
8 hours ahead of Greenwich, 13 hours ahead of US-EST and
16 hours ahead of US-PST if there is no daylight savings time.

After midnight things started to change. Meteors were becoming
more common and less bright. There were more and more "Leonid"
meteors, in comparison to "sporadic" ones. I am not an expert,
though, and so I may have misclassified some meteors as a Leonid
when they actually may not. I was so excited that I didn't know that
the best was yet to come.

At 1:30 am my count had reached 20. By 2 am I had counted
40 meteors. By 2:30 my count had reached 66.

Starting 2:30 am, they started to pour. Meteors were shooting
everywhere, sometimes with a few seconds in-between, sometimes
there are two or three or four at the same time that I was barely
looking at one when my peripheral vision catches another. We
were all shouting and comparing our counts, as if it were a contest
with the most number of meteors seen. Each one of us only counts
what we personally see.

At 3:00 - exactly 30 minutes later, my count had reached 276 meteors!
This means that I saw 210 meteors in a matter of 30 minutes.

During this time the sky was filled with clouds - about 600f the sky
was covered - and yet we would count one meteor after another
through the clouds! At this time Leo's sickle was about 35 degrees
above the eastern horizon.

At 3:30, I stopped counting at 315 meteors and concentrated on
putting down everything I saw on paper so I could remember
them.

The outpour ended and we thought the best was over. But one
of my friends told us that another peak was predicted to occur at
around 4 or 5 am, Philippine Time. He was right.

At 4:30 the skies had cleared and Leo was already very high in the
sky, and we started seeing more meteors again, even more than they
did the first time! Of course I credit this to the clearer skies.

It was so beautiful! We could see shooting stars streaking all over the
place. At one point from 4:45 to 4:47 we counted 25 meteors in a span
of 2 minutes! From 4:30 to 5:00 we saw 230 meteors! It's a good thing
the media wasn't there to disturb our observation with their bright lights.
They should have known better to at least put red filters in their lights.

My friend Gladys Rachel Pia continued counting faithfully and I would
like to share with you her tally, since I had stopped my own count to
be her personal timer and tally-maker.

Here was our tally:

As of - Total count (cumulative)
3:30  -  354  (note that by this time I only had 315)
4:00  -  410
4:10  -  455
4:20  -  498
4:30  -  530
4:40  -  (i wasn't able to note down due to excitement)
4:50  -  704
5:00  -  760
5:30  -  844

These are just numbers, but if you care to look at them, and
understand them, and imagine them, you could guess just how
beautiful the experience was.

Our final count: 844 meteors. I was so glad I came over to watch.
I could have been asleep floating in wonderland. Yet here was I in
a real dream.

I never thought I'd see a meteor shower this good. And I don't think
I'll ever see another one like this again. In my years of being a "casual
observer", of being an ordinary person just looking up the heavens
enjoying the beauty of the night sky, this has probably got to be the
greatest astronomical experience in my life. Not so many people in this
world actually get to see a meteor storm in their lifetime.

I just did.


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