Look Up: Leonid Meteor Shower

http://scienceray.com/astronomy/leonid-meteor-shower-2009-uk-forecast/

for those this side of the pond

I spent whole night observing sky in a hope to see good number of meteors at a reasonably dark site away from city by some 60 kms. Just returning from site.

Unfortunately, some times it was foggy and some times it was clear to show milky way. Time-wise I can say it was 50-50. Fortunately at peak time (predicted), sky was clear.

But I feel the predictions have not realized. We could see some 30-40 meteors over the night. It was no where near to predictions.

In 1996, I saw some 200 meteors very very bright. Those were clearly Leonids. I could not find any mention of this shower in Leonid history. Every meteor was bright to illuminate whole sky and earth around us. The ionised streak line was visible for 15-20 seconds after complete burning of meteor. some times, I could see 3-4 meteors simultaneously. The smoke clouds of each meteor was visible floating in the sky for another 15-20 minutes. It was great show, never to forget.

In 1998 also the show was great though it happened full 24 hours before than the prediction.

In 1999 the meteor count was much higher. We counted 1800+ meteors (not ZHR.. counting every meteor our group saw), but they were not as bright as 1996/ 1998.

I've never seen a meteor shower as spectacular as the ones you describe. My luck, it's either raining, foggy, or cloudy---clouds here now, so nothing to see at all.

Thanks for sharing your observations. At least you saw 30-40 meteors!

Its been raining here in MO for 3 days so meteor shower watching for us.

I do remeber a great show as a teen. We were on a camping trip and didn't even know there was supposed to be a meteor shower that night. One of us was a complete city kid and was already nervous about being in the outdoors. She freaked out when the sky started falling. But we got her calmed down enough to enjoy the show.