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(meteorobs) A brief account of the Leonids 2001 and some photos



I observed the Leonids this year from the Mount Isa Astronomy Group's site in Australia with a fairly large group of people from all over(there was even someone who had also traveled from the UK to be there). We were lucky to have only a few patches of cloud during the peak,with an increase in cover as it got light,but even then we were still seeing Leonids. LM was pretty good all night,and i had clear views of the Magelanic clouds and the milky way.

The night was rich in bright Leonids,although not quite as bright as the fireballs of 98,the 2001 Leonids made up for it in the frequency of medium brightness fireballs (-4 mag to -6 mag) which seemed to be occurring every minute or two on average between around 16:00 UT and 17:30 UT. I can't recall seeing any Leonids which did not leave behind vivid 1-2 second green short lived trains,and a high proportion of meteors were green with the majority of the rest appearing orange-red in color.

Two fireballs left trains visible for more than a few minutes,and one (which i did not actually see although a bright flash alerted me )simply exploded leaving behind a weird green cloud which faded after a few seconds(i recorded one of these on film,but not the event itself it seems!)

Long earthgrazing fireballs started the night off. One in particular which must have taken around 6 or 7 seconds to cross almost the entire (around 150 degrees) sky- starting off as green about 20 degrees above the horizon it brightened to around -4 mag overhead and gradually continued to brighten and get redder as it zoomed away from us and finally disappeared a hand full of degrees above the horizon. I got a good chance to look at the structure of the head and tail as this one passed overhead,and even managed to get the streak it left behind on film(although i did not have a wide enough lens to catch the end of its burn ....just the first 1/3 of it or so!)

There were many "ooohhhs" and "Ahhhhs" when such bright ones appeared,and as their numbers increased people began to call out where they were seeing meteors - "left!" "right!" "overhead!" "behind!!" or "sickle!" ,and at times it was very amusing with many people all calling "left!" "right!" "overhead!" etc, at the same time!!

Quite a few of the early meteors we saw also "skipped",in some cases a number of times - seemingly going out then re-igniting to complete their burn. I am curious to know what causes this - are there any theories out there at the moment?

I could not do any counts during peaks as my main priority was to operate my two cameras and take as many frames with meteors on them as possible,but i came away with the impression of around 2-3000 meteors per hour at its peak,and close to that throughout the night whilst Leo was clear of the horizon.

I have attempted to produce a web site to host the best of the photographs which i took which can be found here :

<http://www.btinternet.com/~l.stachowicz/pics/leo-2001/leonids-2001.htm>

I have also included a little introduction to Leonids for people new to meteor showers - please let me know if you see any inaccuracies or mistakes in there as it was hurriedly put together,and i am a relative newcomer myself :)

Leo
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