Meteor Shower tonight

“Everybody go out and watch it tonight (tomorrow morning). We're supposed to have around 1000 per hour. So make sure you get up at 5 am EST and look”

“that should make my drive home enjoyable.”

“DM, any particular horizon??”

“I'm staying up, there's supposed to hit here between 3 and 4 am but I would hate to miss it so I'm going to start looking at 2 am.

Anybody trying to photograph it?? looks complicated..”

“Well, it looks like it should be hitting here around 12 or 1. I hope it's cool.”

“3or4 around here, but right now ther is a dense fog and I cant see a blitherin thing! hopefully it will clear up.”

“is there a website where i can find what time in my area?”

“Meteors will be showing up in Washington State about 3am. I can't stay up, because I'm moving this weekend, but if I could I would have went to Mount Rainier like I did once before to see meteorites. It was spectacular. I climbed the Fremont Lookout Trail.”

“lh..that must have taken your breath away!
tonight we watched the game on this big deck outside and were observing occasional streamers in the sky......i couldnt wait to get home to string the hennessey hammock outside and will be attempting to stay awake thru the night to watch for the falling embers .
what a neat little chunk of rock we live on! and all this dust and debris swirling around that is bigger than US....yikes.....it's a beautiful thing. hope i get to wake up again tomorrow....”

“i'm fogged in right at the moment. i work right on the james river though. maybe it will be a little clearer on my drive home.”

“It's cloudy here in Salt Lake too. Broken clouds a minute ago let us see about 8 good ones in 10 mins. or so.”

“saw about 13 in the last 1/2 hour in Phoenix..getting a little cloudy

the glow starts as a green because the meteor enters the at atmosphere at a very high altitude where the primary color comes from oxygen at 5577 angstroms...then yellow...then red in the lower atmosphere from nitrogen emissions between 6200 and 6700 angtroms..then a burst of white

can anyone see the color change with your naked eye?? I can't, just looks white”

“been out since 1:30have seen 23 sreaks of firefly farts in an hours time out in the cold..clear cold and a 1000 acres all to myself. but wheres the lightshow?
more media hype i guess .. you can't believe anything they tell you anymore..this "2 meteors per second " BS they've been handing out all evening is so much horse exhaust..it worked out to a meteor every 2 minutes +..”

“We saw hundreds of them here in Flagstaff. 5 and 6 at a time and many of them left fairy dust sparkling. So cool--I have never seen so many before.”

“ya, I have never seen 3 at once before. My view is even hindered (palm tree, neighbor's roof). I can only see about 1/3 of the sky. It's still pretty spectacular.

Hi MP”

“To much fog here for good viewing, but I did see several and it got me out of the house!”

“Started raining here bout 3am. Pisses me off. Every time there's something good (aurora,etc.) it's either cloudy or raining here.

Glad you guys saw some :)”

“We lucked out - took our tents & sleeping bags to a nearby campground in the Loess Hills, set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. Got up, everything is cloudy as far as we can see, not a star in sight. Now that we are all awake, we decide to pack up & head back to town. We just finish throwing everything in the car, look up, and lo and behold! The skies directly above us are clear, just in time for the peak performance. I have never seen so many shooting stars in my life. I am sure there were at least two hundred in the hour that we were watching. It was spectacular, and well worth the lost sleep. Shortly after 5:00, the clouds came back again.”

“Stood out in the driveway and watched for about an hour and it was spectacular. Was definately worth the extra time up to see it.”

“Stood out in the driveway and watched for about an hour and it was spectacular. Was definately worth the extra time up to see it.”

“Yep! It stayed clear for a change. The galaxy came out for the festivities. 20, 25, 30 in a row, lots and lots of doubles, lots of triples, some 4's, a few 5's, and a 6-way or two, *EVLBG*.

Can't wait to see the reports from the Far East and Australia. Could be 4 times what we got.

One observing team at Mt. Lemmon, Arizona has a preliminary report of ~2500 m/hr ZHR.”

“(that's an *Extremely Very Large Big Grin*)”

“Hi Biz”

“Even with the lights of Orange County and dozing off every few minutes, I saw about 24. Once I saw three together. So it was worth it.”

“Fog all night. I missed it. And i am bummed out too. I have been looking forward to it all week.”

“I stept out on the pinic table in the back yard last night watching it. Nice show!”

“Too cloudy here and it started snowing! Snow! Yes!”

“I'm Jealous newgirl!”

“For a change, it stayed clear in New England. We camped out in one of my fields with a 360 view. The show started slowly about 2:30 a.m. with one every minute or two. Between 5 and 6 we must've seen over a thousand, often coming 4 or 5 at a time, and all over the sky. Towards dawn there were a lot of really bright ones in the northeast sky, leaving long tails. Even saw one or two that were orangish at the beginning. Awesome show - well worth the lost sleep. Thank you, universe!”

“Here on the west coast I was up at 3AM to a clear, but cold, sky. In the first 5 minutes must have seen 15 of 'em. Awesome display for about the next 30 minutes. Even saw one break up into 4 pieces. At times there were 3 or 4 in the sky at once. Absolutely amazing.”

“It already melted Walkindude. It was more of a dusting, than a real snow. But I am hopeful now. MT usually gets enough snow to ski by Thanksgiving. Not this yr.”

“Mna I am sooo mad I missed it. Just didn't make plans and being in the light pollution doesn't help. Ah well. If I live to be a 120, I'll probably get another chance to see it.I think they said 2090.”

“WOW! The weather forecast for the last few days called for clouds this AM--glad they were wrong again! Clear skies all around.
I headed east on I-70. Got away from the Denver lights OK, but definitely not away from all the people. Tons of cars on all the county roads. Wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the car 200 yards down that sounded like a dance party! Oh, well, couldn't spoil the view.

At the peak, I counted about 18-20 per minute, just in the section of sky I was watching. Saw 5 or 6 that were bright enough to leave a streak that lasted 5 minutes or so. Saw one right before heading home that lit up the ground all around me. That one alone was worth the lost sleep. Sure can't help but wonder what it would have been like at 11,000 ft in the middle of the backcountry.
Brent”

“Clouds here. Was up LATE and heading to bed around 5:30 A.M. Went outside for one last try. The skies had cleared some. And even though there was a faint glow in the eastern horizon (very faint, but enuf to make the stars not so bright) I saw 10 in 20 minutes. Some very bright. And it was looking at the N-NW quadrant of the sky (I understood they were supposed to be in the SE, is that right?)

Will be anxious to see photos. Hope yours turn out Brent!!”

“I was driving across Nebraska and Wyoming on I-80 all night, and it made for a very entertaining drive. I seldom miss the Leonids when the sky is clear and the moon is down. One year I hiked up into the Uintah mountains for the display. It was spectacular.”

“The weather disagreed withhe weatherman, and there was cloud cover across the entire %&* county. With the exception of one clear spot, about three miles across, right over Clark Valley, where I was camped:o). I saw a couple ealier in the night, but when alarm went off at 3am I saw about 1 meteor or cluster of meteors every 2 minutes. Most of them just went about a quarter of the way acrross the sky, then died. But, a couple left trails as far as I could see. Two of them blazed like phospherous(sp?) leaving images on my retinas, and dust spots in the sky. I can only imagine what it would have been like with clear weather, where there are so many stars visible that you can't reconize constellations.

BTW: Anybody hear about a group called Desert Survivors? I checked out their web site, but I'm looking for more information.”

“the light show was great up on North Folk Mtn. Tr. in WV - I was up at 3:30 watching until dawn - absolutely the best meteor shower I have ever seen. Saw some I have never seen before uncluding the multiple piece meteor (multitracks close together at the same time); skips - meteor glows orange then cools down and then orange again all in the same track; really bright flashes of light as the meteor terminates in a big flash in the sky. All this seen sitting on the rocks in my sleeping bag and Thermarest chair. Visibility was great - only had a few trees blocking my view to the east. I was a little worried about fog since Sat. was a bit foggy - no problem that nigh however.”

“Clear sky all around. Just a few high thin clouds to give a bit of fuzziness.

I drove a few miles out of town to get away from the lights and watched for about an hour.

It was 20 degrees with a 5 mph wind so it was a bit cold, but a nice show anyway.”

“I found some photo tips for future reference... the Geminids peak on Dec 13/14.”

“Watched them here in PA under clear skies between 3:30-5:30 AM. At first falling sporadically (though nonetheless spectacular!), they gradually increased in frequency to peak with 3-4-5 at a time in close sequential bursts shortly before first light. The big ones left dust trails lingering for awhile. Rumors of Glory!”

“Those lingering vapor trails of dust were cool. Got up at 5am for the metoer display, and stayed up and watched the sunrise.”

“went to the top of prayer rock here in PA to see them. absolutely incredible, 4-5 at a time were common. some brighter than descending fireworks.”

“This is how lucky my family was compared to other folks in the vicinity: Omaha World Herald Article

Everyone else I have talked to here, who had planned an effort to see the Leonids, woke up, saw the clouds, and then went back to bed. Sometimes being a camper really pays off!”

“Set the alarm for 3:30am...Got set up in the cornfield a little after 4am. Had chairs, hot cocoa, and was bundled up. Sat there for 1.5 hours and was definitely impressed. We saw 3-4 groupings per sec at some intervals and and an avg of 2-3 per minute for the rest of the time. We had one that flashed behind us and we thought someone had taken a flash picture it was so bright it lit up everything! We could of done without the neighbors still having there spotlights and landscaping lights on at 5 in the morning???”

“whatever, you guys, they were UFO's!

at least that's what my friend was swearing up and down ("like Carl Sagan says, it doesn't matter if you believe in aliens...if they're out there, they're out there!")...we were at a party, out on the deck, and we saw it...bee-you-tee-ful!! :-)”

“We did our training in Lassen with SAR, set up bivy sites around 2:00am, not a cloud in the sky, watched the show till around 4:30.....WAY COOL!!!!!!!!

It was funny listening to the nonstop ohhh's, aaaw's, eeeeww's, cooooool's and wow's.”

“I got up around 4:30 to check it out. Even with all the light pollution we have, it was spectacular. My wife had never seen one shooting star before so it was a real treat. I only wish we'd taken a drive to a darker location.”

“-----------------------------------------------------------
International Meteor Organization
Meteor Shower Circular

2 0 0 1 L E O N I D S
-----------------------------------------------------------

This year's Leonids were marked from excellent
lunar conditions. The weather was also very
friendly to most of the observers around the world.

The strongest peak observed is around 18h20min
UT which was suitably situated for the observers
in East Asia and Australia. The rates during this
peak reached more then 2800 meteors per hour.
This is well below the theoretically predicted peak
levels which were around 5000 according to
Lyytinen/Nissinen/van Flaudern or 8000 in
Asher/McNaught's model.

As far as the first peak, observed from America,
is concerned rates were between 1000 and 1500
meteors per hour. However there is still not enough
data reported from it especially about the time after
11 UT.

[snip] (there's another page full of data that
goes along with this, if you'd like to see
it, *G*)

Many thanks to all the observers that have
contributed their data. Also to the favorable
weather conditions whish are not so typical
for this part of the year.

Clear Skies,
Vladimir Krumov”

“What news from our sole representative from the Land of Oz?

I hope the weather didn't screw him over, too.”

“Would love to have been camping on the AT in Pennsylvania last Saturday night, but had to settle for my back yard - great meteor display !!!”