Re: Leonids & Satellite Damage

Robert Reeves (rreeves@connecti.com)
Thu, 19 Nov 1998 06:14:37 -0600

>BTW, I guess that there eare easier ways than trying to freeze myself to
>death.   Outside at 10pm Tuesday evening until 4.45am Wednesday morning
>and saw 5 meteors, one of which was sporadic.   Maybe next year will be a
>decent display, as some are already predicting.
>
>Phillip Clark
>

Here in Texas, things were a little more interesting.  I traveled about 25
miles NW
of San Antonio, Texas, to the Limber Observatory.  I got up at 3am on the
17th and
arrived at the observatory at 4 am.  I saw 10 meteors through the windshield
as
I drove to the observatory.  Once there, between 4am and 6am each person in
our observing group saw about 300/hr with bursts to 500/hr for brief
periods.
We have made no attempt to translate this into the classical Zenith Hourly
Rate
but we were seriously impressed with what we saw.  In the two hours, there
were ten shaddow-casting fireballs, including one real pants-wetter at the
zenith
which I was lucky enough to catch on film.  I will post the image to my web
page
this evening.

BTW, not to rib Mr. Clark too badly, we were observing in our shirtsleeves.
I
was amazed at how warm it was even for south Texas in November.