On (16 Nov 98) Dieter wrote to Avtech-l...

 D > For a once in a lifetime event ( every 33 years, actually), witness a
 D > meteor shower of the likes you will rarely see.

 D > Available only on November 18th 1998, for a limited time only in the wee
 D > small hours (2.30am to 5.30am OZ time), in the NE corner of the sky. Expect
 D > to see approx 3000 meteors/hour.

Crosspost:

 Area:    ASTRONOMY
 Date:    19 Nov 98  23:11:15  Public
 From:    Roy McNeill
 To:      all
 Subject: leonids

Well, it wasn't a firestorm, and none of them made night into day,
and none of them even broke up into jillions of fragments. But our
little group of eight spotted 83 odd leonids between 0200 and 0430
local time (1600 to 1830 17/11 UTC) plus a handful of strays and a
few satellites. A bit less than half of the meteors were bright
enough to get yells of appreciation.

All of the leonids were noticeably fast. The strays varied in speed
from gentle to quick, but every leonid (except for the occasional
radiant...) was Quick. The brighter ones all left greenish trails
which remained visible for at least some seconds. The best of them
was still visible in binocs after two minutes. One trail, which
looked relatively short because it was close to the radiant point,
quickly developed a kink, and after a minute the middle bit was
stretched out to the left of the beginning and end bits quite a
bit. Must be some interesting breezes way up there in the
ionosphere.

There was plenty of media coverage the previous evening, and at
0230 as I drove down the beach road to our spot, I noticed more
cars in the various carparks than I'd ever seen on a hot summer
weekend. Our carpark was packed, people in chairs, people lying on
car bonnets, people out on the beach. Most of them stayed for at
least an hour and a half, which I think gave a bit of a lie to the
media reports the next day that ran something like "Meteor Show A
Fizzer". Our lot enjoyed it hugely, and anyone that the media
interviewed who seemed to have any interest in astronomy seemed far
from disappointed. I think these reporters are beginning to believe
their own hype.

 I heard on radio today that the actual peak came 12 hours
early, and the Canary Islands saw rates up to 2000 an hour. This
would suggest that the eastern USA should have seen something.
Comments?

Cheers

ps comet Hale-Bopp is still telescope visible, not far from
Canopus. It's now nearly halfway between the orbits of Jupiter and
Saturn, and we can *still* see it. I'd guess its visible diameter
as something similar to our Moon's orbit. At mag 10+, it's faint,
but still very impressive.



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