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(meteorobs) Preliminary Leonid ZHR curve - Mt. Lemmon Observations



Hello all,

A *very* preliminary graph of the Leonid meteor shower corrected activity 
curve as seen from Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, on Sunday, November 18, 2001 is now 
posted on the AMS home page:

http://www.amsmeteors.org/

The observing team, operating from the Mt. Lemmon Observing Facility (MLOF) 
outside of the 40-inch telescope dome, detected three apparent minor peaks 
in the overall activity curve from our *single* location (caution advised 
in interpreting this):

(1) 1020 +/-0005 UTC  -->  1700-1800 m/hr ZHR
(2) 1045 +/-0005 UTC  -->  2400-2500 m/hr ZHR
(3) 1105 +/-0005 UTC  -->  2400-2500 m/hr ZHR

It will be fascinating to see if these finer structures are visible in the 
data from other locations.  The data from Ondrojav observatory shows four 
minor peaks, three of which appears close to ours (although the relative 
strengths are different):

http://www.asudot cas.cz/~stork/leo_2001/

We observed an above "storm strength" activity level (> 1000 m/hr ZHR) from 
about 1000-1130 UTC.  Rates for the night began quite good (ZHR > 150 m/hr) 
and ended quite good (ZHR > 350 m/hr), with a very rich bright Leonid 
population throughout (many nice
fireballs).

These rates were determined using a team of experienced visual 
observers:  consisting of Jure Atanakov, David Holman, Javor Kac, Tom 
Kucharski, Robert Lunsford, Ana Mancic, and Jure Zakrajsek.  All observers 
operated remote "smart-mice," which feed into a PC operated by James 
Richardson, using software developed by Morris Jones to perform real-time 
ZHR calculations from multiple observers for the NASA / AMES Leonids Campaign:

http://leonid.arc.nasadot gov/

Further analysis of this data will be conducted by Peter Jenniskens and his 
team.

Best regards,

      Jim Richardson


------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 webpage:  http://www.amsmeteors.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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