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(meteorobs) Thank you! plus my 1-min counts & family/friend obs
This is mainly to say "Thank you very much!!" to the various teams
who made Leonid predictions! Among the prediction graphs given by
Science @ NASA:
http://science.nasadot gov/headlines/y2002/09oct_leonidsforecast.htm
was the one for Houston, Texas (nearest to me). Estimating the
numbers from that graph, the 15-minute, moonlight-biased,
predicted rates were about:
330 Asher-McNaught (1,320/hr)
250 Jenniskens (1,000/hr)
150 Lyytinen-Van Flandern (600/hr)
(By the way, the Vaubaillon-Colas prediction was pretty close to
that of Lyytinen-Van Flandern but wasn't in the Science @ NASA
graphs. However, all four, without bias for moonlight, appear
in a graph on this page: http://www.spaceweather.com/leonids/ .)
My raw count for 10:35-10:55 Nov 19 UTC was 261 Leonids (783/hr
-- don't know what ZHR that would be), including 16 in one minute
and 69 in five minutes, and also I saw a number of doublets and
maybe even three or four at once. So my actual results fell well
above the lowest of the moonlight-biased predictions. Here are
my one-minute counts (except two periods as noted; times have an
implied ":00" appended, i.e., 10:00:00-10:02:00, please pardon a
bit of redundancy from yesterday's report):
Ed Cannon
Date: 2002 November 18/19 (Tuesday, November 19 UTC)
Time: 10:00-11:30 UTC (used WWV radio to keep time)
Site: 30.89N, 98.43W, 335 meters elevation (Canyon of the Eagles,
Burnet County, Texas, USA)
Sky: clear, and FOV unobstructed throughout
LM: about +4.6 throughout
Field of View: centered on about altitude 70, azimuth 65
Recording method: writing in small spiral-bound notebook
10:00-10:02 1 (two minutes)
10:02-10:03 1
10:03-10:04 2
10:04-10:05 1
10:05-10:06 0
10:06-10:07 1
10:07-10:08 0
10:08-10:09 2
10:09-10:10 1
10:10-10:11 2 (plus 1 non-LEO)
10:11-10:12 1
10:12-10:13 0
10:13-10:14 2
10:14-10:15 1
10:15-10:16 0
10:16-10:17 2
10:17-10:18 3
10:18-10:19 5
10:19-10:20 2
10:20-10:22 7 (two minutes)
10:22-10:23 2
10:23-10:24 5
10:24-10:25 3
10:25-10:26 2
10:26-10:27 6
10:27-10:28 4
10:28-10:29 7
10:29-10:30 5
10:30-10:31 8
10:31-10:32 4
10:32-10:33 6
10:33-10:34 9
10:34-10:35 6
10:35-10:36 13
10:36-10:37 13
10:37-10:38 14
10:38-10:39 13
10:39-10:40 13
10:40-10:41 16
10:41-10:42 9
10:42-10:43 9
10:43-10:44 9
10:44-10:45 14
10:45-10:46 15
10:46-10:47 13
10:47-10:48 6
10:48-10:49 15
10:49-10:50 10
10:50-10:51 6
10:51-10:52 8
10:52-10:53 12
10:53-10:54 10
10:54-10:55 13
10:55-10:56 6
10:56-10:57 7
10:57-10:58 0
10:58-10:59 9
10:59-11:00 6
11:00-11:05 break
11:05-11:06 4
11:06-11:07 5
11:07-11:08 11
11:08-11:09 2
11:09-11:10 4
11:10-11:11 2
11:11-11:12 3
11:12-11:13 7
11:13-11:14 5
11:14-11:15 4
11:15-11:16 3
11:16-11:17 2 (plus 1 non-LEO)
11:17-11:18 2 (plus 1 non-LEO)
11:18-11:19 1
11:19-11:20 0
11:20-11:21 3
11:21-11:22 5
11:22-11:23 break
11:23-11:24 1
11:24-11:25 1
11:25-11:26 2
11:26-11:27 3
11:27-11:28 1
11:28-11:29 2
11:29-11:30 3
Teff: 84 minutes (1.40 hour)
Leonids, 436; non-Leonids, 3
In total throughout the time my friends and I were observing
at the Austin Astronomical Society's observatory site, there
were at least 20 people there, and I can safely say that a
lot of meteors were seen. I overheard one person say, "I'll
never be impressed by the Perseids again."
I'm also happy to mention these brief casual Leonid reports
I've heard from family and friends:
- My mom and sister (San Antonio, Texas) each looked out a
bedroom window and saw some Leonids!
- My cousin-in-law (Dripping Springs, Texas) counted 157 from
his front yard between 10:00 and 11:00 UTC, with up to 50% of
the sky cloud-covered (south cloudy, north clear).
- One Austin friend watched from 10:00-10:20 UTC and saw 22 in
spite of the clouds and part of sky obstructed by her house.
- One professor where I work took her dog for a walk early, at
4:00 a.m. (10:00 UTC), and saw some (same partly cloudy sky).
All in all, I was very glad that I had the good fortune to
have clear sky, and I'm very pleased with my results and am
very grateful for the efforts of (and peer-review risk taken
by) those who provided predictions -- which, with moonlight
taken into account, seem to me to have been very good!
Ed Cannon - ecannon @ mail.utexasdot edu - Austin, Texas, USA
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