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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1580      2000 Nov 17 12.44UT
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
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LEONIDS 2000
Further to the comments on E1579, IMO have also provided additional
guidance if a storm materialises although we stress that this
is considered unlikely this year:

In the less likely case of very high rates, however, you will run
into problems when you try to register shower and magnitude
information for each meteor. First, drop the shower information
from your log. If the activity will have reached a level that it
becomes impossible to register all normally required data, the
relative contamination of your counts by non-Leonids will have
become negligible. The magnitude information, however, is most
essential for understanding the Leonid meteoroid stream.

Try to report magnitudes for each meteor as long as possible.
Your notes, whether on tape or on paper, will just be a sequence
of numbers - the magnitudes. In the case of a meteor storm, remain
vigilant for ALL meteors, including fainter ones! Indeed, an
abundance of meteors may reduce the observer's attention to the
nicely bright meteors (which will be numerous, even though the
population index may be high). This would distort the observer's
magnitude distribution, however, and result in erroneous
conclusions.

Limiting magnitude estimates will be difficult during an outburst.
At least, you should obtain a limiting magnitude estimate shortly
before and a limiting magnitude shortly after the outburst. If the
conditions change during extraordinary activity, you may note
relative measures like "Lm reduces by 0.1" simply according to your
impression. Another possibility is a short break in your
observation for limiting magnitude determination. This is certainly
the more accurate way, though we will lose a minute or two in
recording meteors, which is not considered to be a dramatic loss.

SUPERNOVA 2000ej IN IC 1371
M. Schwartz, Cottage Grove, OR; and W. D. Li and A. V.Filippenko,
University of California at Berkeley, report the discovery of an
apparent supernova (mag about 18) on unfiltered images taken with
the 0.5-m Tenagra III telescope on Nov. 2.2 and 6.2 UT in the
course of the LOTOSS (cf. IAUC 7514).  The new object is located at
R.A. = 21h20m15s.66, Decl. = -4 52'40".5 (2000), which is 5".8
south of the nucleus of IC 1371.  Photometry of the supernova is
difficult because of its proximity to the bright nucleus of the
host galaxy.  An unfiltered image taken with the 0.8-m Katzman
Automatic Imaging Telescope on Sept. 29.2 showed nothing at the
position of SN 2000ej (limiting mag about 19.0).

Guy M Hurst