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(meteorobs) Leonids from South Australia



Here are the first two reports I got from members of our local
astronomical society, both from country SA.
Personally I was undercloud most of the time and only saw
a dozen or so leonids between radiant rise and nautical twilight
Tony Beresford
Technical Information Officer
Astro. Soc. of South Australia

[From Whyalla , a small city some 200Km NW of Adelaide,SA.
(-32.88, 137.56E )
Treglana is one of the observing sites of the group of 20 or so
members of ASSA at Whyalla]
G'day Everyone,
	Braving a very cold and blustery wind, 16 people turned up to Tregalana to
view the leonids. From around 1am through till about 2.45am, the only things
we saw were occasional meteors every few minutes. One however started very
low in the east, passed directly overhead and ended up disappearing low in
the west. Very spectacular indeed. It started to look a bit doubtful when
clouds started rolling in from the south but thankfully they soon cleared
and left us with only the wind and cold to worry about.
	From around 2.45 on the action started happening. We were noticing that the
meteors seemed to be happening in clusters. They may be between 2 and 6 in
the sky at any one time for 20 - 30 seconds or so followed by brief lulls in
the rate for a minute perhaps. Around 3.30am we were treated to a spectacle
of 4 short, almost pinpoint green leonids in the centre of Leo at the same
time. This was very spectacular and was close to the highlight of the night.
Fireworks couldn't compare to that. As the morning wore on, there were
numerous bright, long and smoky tailed leonids. One left a smoke trail which
lasted well over 5 minutes.
	It was a shame that we didn't do a proper count of the meteors to find out
the rate for us but my gut feeling is that we saw well over 2000 meteors in
the 4 hours that we were watching. The last hour before quitting at 5am
really treated us to a display. A pity this doesn't happen very often. I
would love to see this sort of thing again.
	I hope the other ASSA members who stayed up to watch were treated to the
same or better display that we were.

Cheers

John Murray
Whyalla
[Quorn is a small town in the Southern Flinders Ranges some 300Km
 North of Adelaide -32.20d , 138.03dE]

Well people, the predictions were pretty good. We were a few 
Km north of Quorn on a side road and were very impressed. Even at 5:10 am in the 
main street of town a few meteors were still zapping the sky in the strong 
twillight. Sorry, no detailed report, we enjoyed the show from 2:30 am 
onwards. The first meteors often had very long trails
but only about one a minute. (skimming the atmosphere ? 
>From 3:30 am we saw more around 10/min all over the 
sky.
>From 4am Leo was well up and meteors were often visible below 
the radiant. A green colour to the meteors was often noticed from about then. 
Several very bright ones flashed spectaculary, with one leaving a glowing train 
for about a minute near the LMC. We noticed a distinct orange head to most, and 
a tendency to occur in pairs and threes. One instance of a twin head and trails 
was interesting. From around 4am to 5am the rate one observer could see was 
something around 30 to 90 per minute, but patchy. Of course the fainter ones 
disappeared with twilight, but the shower of bright meteors in the early dawn 
light was stunning. We had a clear sky with a cold southerly wind. A very 
satisfying event.
Catherine & Philip Bott


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