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(meteorobs) admin fwd: Leonids in Brazil
please note: Paulo M Raymundo <raymundo@reaiche.com> is not a subscriber to
meteorobs, please include his address in a reply:
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November 18, 2001
Very bright and fast meteors of all colors were seen dropping everywhere
across the sky in Salvador, Brazil from 1:30 to 5:30 a.m. local time
(UT-2). The show started at 03:28 UT when we saw a -6 mag. orange
earth-grazer that extended from horizon to horizon. Half of the Leonids
were magnitude zero or brighter and most of them left afterglows, lasting
no longer than a second or two at most. Many meteors occurred within
seconds of each other and fireballs also appeared to come in clusters
frequently. The fireballs were the best since 1998's display, but this time
there was a much greater number of red fireballs. The highest concentration
of bright meteors occurred within 8 minutes: I counted eleven Leonids of
negative magnitude from 05:48 to 05:56 UT. I saw a -9 magnitude fireball
near Capella which left a persistent train that remained visible for over
ten minutes to the naked eye. I have posted a sequence of four photos at
http://www.reaiche.com/Fireballs_and_Meteors.html that sh
ows the evolution of the smoke train. We saw so many meteors and fireballs
during the four-hour period under 4.9 mag. skies that we couldn't take
pictures and count Leonids at the same time. Although astronomical twilight
had started at 4:40 a.m. local time, we kept seeing fireballs until 26
minutes before sunrise, three hours before the predicted peak of the 1767
dust trail over the U.S.A.
November 19, 2001
We saw fewer and mostly fainter meteors than the night before. We started
observing nine hours past the predicted peaks for the 1699 and the 1866
dust trails, which occurred over Asia. Even so, we could capture on film
several bright Leonids. We saw 82 meteors ranging from +3 mag. to
-5 mag. under NELM ~5.1 from 1:30 to 4:40 a.m. local time. We counted
another 22 meteors until 5:08 a.m., well into twilight.
These two nights will be remembered forever... I have seen one of the
greatest spectacles of my life... we shot 112 exposures with a single
camera set up on a tripod, but we often stopped taking pictures and just
watched, while wowed and ooohhhed in disbelief... I have posted 12 photos
of the Leonids at http://www.reaiche.com/Fireballs_and_Meteors.html
Paulo Raymundo
http://www.reaiche.com
http://www.reaiche.com/Astronomy.html
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