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(meteorobs) Re: meteorobs-digest V4 #1205--PERSEIDS



My family drove with me from Tulsa, Oklahoma to the Tallgrass Prairie in Osage County, Oklahoma.
We went before sundown in hope of seeing an "earthgrazer" like the Leonid we saw two years ago
just after midnight. It appeared about ten degrees above the horizon; my wife's wonderful eyes
caught it as it approached our van from behind. It was so large and so bright it made her start
screaming at the rest of us. That year we had to drive almost to Colorado to get away from the
heavy clouds--that is almost five hours, as the crow flew that night. We had finally reached clear
skies and were looking for a place to pull off the road. The Leonid flew past our car, an
unbelievable flourescent green; it was so totally parallel to the earth and parallel to the road
that a good way to describe it would be to imagine one rail of the railroad elevated into the sky
and glowing so bright it appeared to cast shadows. When it reached the position of about one
o'clock outside the front windshield, it exploded into multiple green-apple fragments. We
immediately found a place to park and began putting down sleeping bags in which we still froze
that night. We saw over 1,200 by the time the peak occurred, about four o'clock, and had to leave
then anyway due to fog closing over us. I continued to see stars falling into the sunrise as I
drove back east to Tulsa while my family and our new puppy, Boo, slept.

Even with the beauty of the Tallgrass Prairie supplemented by bison sightings, deer sightings, and
the serenading of several coyotes, the moonrise completely destroyed the sky. I saw one sporadic
about ten o'clock that began in Bootes and ran through Scorpio. Even with the moon preening in all
its glory, the magnitude of the meteor easily surpassed the brightest I have ever seen Venus.
Alas, that was about it, except for a few short duds seen about half an hour apart. We became so
dispirited that we left after midnight. At four a.m., I went outside and found that the city
lights were not as bright as the moon and a cloudbank had scudded in from the east, covering just
about everything but the moon. The clouds were thin enough, however, to see through them at
certain points. Overall, we looked at a sky that looked like someone had erased the Milky Way from
it and somehow had blocked even the normal sporadics. From this same area last year, we saw
several hundred Leonids in a bitter-cold two hour outing. Never have I had the luxury of a new
moon and a rural area impressed upon me quite as forcefully. Here's to a couple of weeks down the
skyway and the remaining summer nights. And turn out the lights if they are not necessary.

Johnie in Tulsa, Ok.

=====
jonny

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