------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1358 1998 Nov 19 07.32UT Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074 INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK GMH at AST.STAR.RL.AC.UK WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.demon.co.uk/astronomer ------------------------------------------------------------------- LEONIDS Andy Stephens, e-mails: Observations from Gotherington, Cheltenham, England 1998 Nov 16/17 (04.00-04.15UT) yielded 30 meteors, 04.15-04.30 yielded 37. This was a casual watch with the sky to the East of Leo hidden by my house. 05.05-05.20 yielded 30. Much high cloud at this time, stars in Leo on visible only to mag 2 for a period. Sky West of Orion clearer. High numbers of very bright fireballs with terminal flashes. Brighter meteors left persistent trains predominantly greenish, which distort into twisted smoky trails. Some terminal flashes with red centres. Sometimes several appear within a few seconds producing the well known 'bunching' effect. Several fireballs lit up the high cloud. Some cast momentary shadows from the tall fir trees in my garden. Based on these observations ZHR is minimum 150+ and could be in excess of 250 at a really clear site. Gabriel Oksa: 1998 November 16/17, 4:45 to 4:55 UT I saw around 20 Leonid bolides, each brighter than -1 mag, two of them like lightening in storm, around -10 mag. This was in the middle of town Trnava (Slovenia) with severe light pollution! Bolides were beautifully orange, very rapid, each had train. During my way to work in the bus I saw another five bolids in bright twilight, the last one at 5:25 UT near the Moon just over horizon, it was like full moon !!! Martin Brown: Nov 16/17, 0700-0800 GMT+1 from Belgium I saw several bright meteors in mag -5 brightness range and the odd one with persistent trail. Light pollution in Brussels is a bit severe so only the brightest meteors were visible from my location. Arcturus was lost in dawn sky brightness from high cloud at around 0740, but meteors still visible. Nick James: To accompany the spectacular Leonid outburst on Tuesday morning the TA web page has had more than 1,000 accesses in the last 24 hours. Over 400 people have downloaded the Platt fireball movie making it one of our most popular downloads ever. It would seem that the Leonids peaked around dawn on Tuesday and activity then fell off sharply. Reports from the Mason/Mobberley India expedition indicate that rates were only around 40/hr at the predicted storm peak (Nov 17.8). No observing was possible on the previous night due to a Cyclone! Jim Kremsreiter: Leonid report from midwest USA. While flying between Detroit, Michigan and Madison, Wisconsin between 0530 and 0645 UT, Nov 16, 1998 I saw about 30 bright meteors. Quite a few to about Mag -4. The weather was solid overcast during that period so the only way to see anything was to fly. I was flying west, away from Leo, so I figured I missed most of the dimmer meteors. Fraser Farrell (Australia): During the observing period (Nov 17 16:30 to 18:40UT) I saw 39 Leonids. About the same rate as I saw in 1997, but most of this year's Leonids were bright (mags -3 to 1) with many leaving long, brief, trails. Interestingly there were a few bright meteors seen going towards the radiant. Do Leonids bounce? Guy M Hurst