USER OBSERVATIONS Last updated: 23 November 2001

Mike here with a Leonids report: I viewed the Leonids from 0030-0500 PST on 18 November 2001 from my backyard in Southern California. The view was hampered by some high thin clouds, houses, and a streetlight recently uncovered when a neighbor's tree was removed (rats). But the views were still spectacular at times. Here's a breakdown of my counts (the oddball time ranges were the start-stop times of photos). The graph shows where a likely peak occurred (times are Universal on the graph).

0030-0100 = 7 meteors
0105-0120 = 8 meteors
0120-0135 = 3 meteors
0135-0200 = 15 meteors
0204-0218 = 22 meteors
0219-0229 = 26 meteors
0230-0235 = 13 meteors
0235-0245 = 30 meteors
0245-0300 = 41 meteors
0300-0310 = 24 meteors
0310-0330 = 48 meteors
0330-0345 = 24 meteors
0345-0350 = 11 meteors
0355-0410 = 27 meteors
0410-0430 = 21 meteors
0430-0445 = 9 meteors
0445-0500 = 0 meteors

At the apparent peak of 0230-0330 I saw 156 meteors and total for the night of 329. Certainly not a "storm" but a nice shower for my restricted and somewhat light-polluted area.

Most of the Leonids were fast moving. Many left very nice trains. One train lasted for about 30 seconds. Many of the meteors were bright; much brighter than Saturn, and some even brighter than Jupiter. One very bright one went behind a house and then the sky light up; must have been a nice bolide!

I'll post any good photos as soon as I get them back from PhotoCD processing.

Subject:	A few words on the Leonids...
Sent:	Sunday, November 18, 2001 23:05:38
From:	stantstk@pacbell.net (Stan Glaser)
Oooooohhhhh!!!...Aaaaaahhhhh!!!...Wow!!!...Didja see that one?...No,
where?...Over there...Nope, but didja see THAT one?...No, I was looking
at THAT ONE!!!...Woooohhh, you saw THAT one over there, didn't
you...Yep!!!

And so it went all night long, base station Little Blair Valley in Anza
Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California. Sky had patches of
thin clouds most of the night, but majority of the sky was very clear.
Seeing for galaxies, nebulae, and planets was exceptional -- I even got
a great look at Comet LINEAR WM1 through my -90EC. Meteor activity
started to increase around 0130 to 0145, but really got hot and heavy
from 0200 to 0330. I just HAD to get a little shuteye at 0330 so we
could make it back home in one piece. My wife had some early sleep and
awoke at 0130 to join me; after I hit the pillow, she managed to hang on
until 0400, then she nodded off outside while I had already ducked into
the van. We were hoping to see perhaps one per second or so, but that
never happened. We did get some quick burst of activity (there's one,
another, another, woooowww!!!), then a small lull, and then more. We
were all impressed -- the best show we've seen. Did not even begin to
count how many we saw -- just laid back and enjoyed the show.

One complaint -- too many people trying to fit into the area last night.
For the Perseids, I recall there being no more than maybe 7 cars the
whole evening. Last night -- I'm guessing about 200 people in Little
Blair Valley alone -- and a lot of them had NO consideration for others
-- smoking, radio blaring, open fires (NOT ALLOWED!!!), and heard from
almost every astronomer there with a scope when they came driving in --
LIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All in all, though, wouldn't have missed it for anything. Even our new
puppy enjoyed the event!!

Clear skies to everyone...

Stan Glaser
stantstk@pacbell.net

Subject:	Meteor Photography
Sent:	Monday, November 19, 2001 19:57:54
From:	BriGuy730@aol.com
My name is Brian Gaines these are all taken with a connon power shot g2
with 15 second exposures. i changes the backround to bring out the meteor.

Subject:	Leonid Photos
Sent:	Monday, November 19, 2001 21:15:59
From:	bboulware@mindspring.com (B.Boulware)
Wanted to share some photos I took last Sunday night of the Leonids.  I
used a old Nikon EM with Fujicolor Superia X-TRA ISO 800 film.  I set
the focus on infinity and the f-stop on 1.8.  Exposure time was fifteen
seconds using a shutter cable release.  This was my first attempt at
astrophotography and I am officially hooked!

Bobby J. Boulware

Subject:	Leonids
Sent:	Wednesday, November 21, 2001 19:22:01
From:	stankiewiczr@cogeco.ca (Rick Stankiewicz)
I am attaching a few shots of the Leonids that I was fortunate enough to
get.

In the one shot I was taking a 3 minute exposure of M44 with a Canon
135mm lense piggybacked on my ETX telescope when I caught a Leonid in
the corned of the frame.  A real fluke!

The other image is a 8 minute star trail of Orion and Saturn.  The
Leonid below Rigel is obvious, but there are 2 others in the picture too
(below the brighter meteor and above Saturn).

Enjoy,

Rick Stankiewicz
Peterborough, Ontario
Canada

Subject:	Leonid over Arizona
Sent:	Wednesday, November 21, 2001 19:54:49
From:	kenariz@juno.com (Ken W Anderson)
This was the best pic I took on Sun Nov 18th. 35mm slr on tripod using
44mm lens, Iso 400 fuji at f2.8 , exposure time was 1 min. If its good
enough you could post it.

Subject:	Leonids Meteor
Sent:	Thursday, November 22, 2001 0:40:14
From:	vincent_ysc1@yahoo.com (chan sing)
Leonids Meteor shower at 19/11/2001 was great,I can saw around 2000~2500
meteor from 00:00am~06:00am in Hong Kong.weather was
fine,cloudless.seeing was good. attach photos was used Casio digital
camera mount on ETX90(piggyback),polar tracking.camera setting ISO
500.10 secs expose.f=33mm(F2).

Best regards
Vincent

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