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(meteorobs) Poor Leonids Showing in Putnam Valley, NY
My wife Renate and my two kids, Joseph (12) and Maria (9), spent an hour
beginning at 4:30 a.m. EST looking for Leonids from our home in Putnam
Valley. On the best nights here, we have limiting magnitudes of around 5.5 .
. . not bad considering we're just 50 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.
But on this long-awaited morning of the Leonid shower, we had to contend
not only with a full Moon but a high overcast at 20 to 25,000 feet. Earlier
in the night this produced a beautiful lunar halo. They thinned out enough
so that I could see M42 at 4:30 . . . but by 5:30 as we approached the
expected peak time, the clouds had thickened up so that the Moon -- low in
the west-northwest -- was totally obliterated and the only thing left that
was visible was Jupiter!
We did see some Leonids -- at one point there was a brief spurt of four
in two minutes -- but it was obvious that if the shower was increasing to
storm levels than the vast majority of the meteors were likely not bright
enough to be seen through the thickening "schmutz" evolving over our heads.
In fact, we saw nothing remotely approaching the dazzlers we saw in
Arizona last year, which popped like flashbulbs, cast shadows and hung trails
lasting for many minutes. Surely, if even one of these showed up it might
have made our morning. But none didn't, so we went back into our warm house
soon after 5:30 to sip some hot cocoa and to cope with our disappointment,
both with the weather . . . and the Leonids themselves. :(
Oh well . . . better luck in 2131!
-- joe rao
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