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(meteorobs) Some Leonid Reflections
I still have to do my minute by minute breakdown for the Leonid maximum
from West Virginia, which I will try to do over the Thanksgiving weekend. I
thought it may be of interest to give some of my thoughts and experiences
about the meteor storm. First, is ZHR. What is considered a resonable time
sample for a ZHR? If it is 15 minutes, then I would say the ZHR was about 1200
near 11 UT, but if only a few minuted can be used, then the ZHR was probably
twice as high for a few minutes, during several periods from 10:15 to 11:00,
and three or four times as high if a minute or fraction of a minute can be
used for a ZHR.
There were flurries of several seen within a second, and one a second for a
few seconds, indicating a ZHR of 3600 or higher over a period of less than a
minute. Anyway, if a "true" ZHR of 1000 (actual meteors seen in actual time)
or more is by definition a storm, then we saw a true storm between 10:00 and
11:00 UT in the eastern USA, when making the standard corrections for zenith
distance and limiting magnitude. As I wrote, I saw 784 actual Leonids (LM=5.8)
in that "real" time period. As for multiple peaks, there were probably several
sub-peaks from filiments from the 1767 trailet, with high short period ZHRs
well above 1200.
Personally, the meteor rates seen for this Leonid storm made it by far the
best meteor shower, in terms of the number of meteors seen, I have seen in my
40 years of meteor observing (I missed the 1966 storm). However, the 1998 Leo-
nid Bolide Shower was still the best for the number of Leonid Fireballs seen
(23 fireballs in 3.25 hrs). Both were wonderful things to experience.
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