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(meteorobs) Leonid Report from Illinois
Skies cleared beautifully shortly after midnight, after a little rain
had fallen just a few hours earlier. I began setting up shortly
thereafter and did my first 15-minute stint from 7:15-7:30 (UT). I
only saw 5 Leonids. The moonlight was horrendous at that time with
the limiting magnitude at the zenith being no better than 3.5 or 4.
I went inside and checked the internet to see how the European
maximum had gone. I went back outside and observed nonstop from 8:40
to 11:45 (UT) and saw 358 Leonids. The breakdown is as follows:
Time (UT)
8:40-9:00 13 (LM=4.6)
9:00-9:15 9
9:15-9:30 11
9:30-9:45 10
9:45-10:00 9
10:00-10:15 15 (LM=4.6)
10:15-10:30 36 (LM=4.7)
10:30-10:45 76 (LM=4.7)
10:45-11:00 94 (LM=4.8)
11:00-11:15 43 (LM=4.9)
11:15-11:30 28 (little moon interference, LM=5.3)
11:30-11:45 14 (twilight, no moon, LM=4.5)
Overall, I was struck by the lack of brilliant meteors this year.
Last year, with stratus clouds covering the sky for over 5 hours and
Jupiter being the only object visible for most of the time, I saw six
Leonids that lit up the sky. This year I only saw one Leonid that lit
up the sky. This year I only saw two Leonids with a persistent train
that lasted 30 seconds and longer. The longest lasting persistent
train was from the meteor that lit up the sky and remained visible
for about 6 minutes.
It seems obvious that the maximum came a few minutes after 10:45 UT.
Right around the time of maximum, there were some interesting very
short bursts of activity in which 3 to 5 meteors would appear at
once. Also around this time, I saw three distinctly fuzzy looking
meteors, which could possibly have been a couple of meteors very
close to one another.
For the first time in my life, I chose to watch the region around the
radiant of a meteor shower. I saw a lot of nice short-trailed meteors
and noted something I did not expect. Before the maximum kicked in I
had a good estimate that the radiant was just west of Zeta Leonis.
When the maximum hit, the meteors seemed to be coming from a radiant
northwest of Zeta, toward Mu Leonis. One short-trailed meteor from
the Mu radiant even deposited a train about a degree west of Zeta
that pointed directly toward Mu. After 11:15, I noted the radiant
seemed next to Zeta again. This might have simply been my mind trying
to correlate the meteors next to the two brighter stars in that
region. All of the meteors seem to come from a region about 5 degrees
across, which I believe is close to the traditionally accepted
radiant diameter.
Sincerely,
Gary
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