Paul Jones
Plain of Catania, Sicily
November 10, 1999
0300-0430 UTC

Just got in from a VERY intriguing hour and a half of pre-dawn observations from my "old farmhouse" site on the Plain of Catania. First night in almost a week that's been clear here! The SURPRISES: FIVE EARLY LEONIDS and two strong candidates for possible LINEARIDS!!

The Leonids: The first was a +3 mag in Ursa Major tracking north. Number two was a beauty: a golden +2 mag with a classic, tell-tale luminous Leonid train! It appeared within the Sickle going NNW and was short, only two degrees long, the train hung for almost a second. Number three was a short +4 mag again going north in the Big dipper. The two in twilight time were +2 mag and +1 mag, no trains. The +1 was a deep golden yellow going SW through Orion. Not a bad start to LEONID week - 1999!!

In the mean time, many of the scientific teams established to monitor the Leonids this year began to converge upon their various observing locations over the weekend of Nov. 13-14, setting up equipment and conducting baseline data gathering sessions in the early days of the week of expected Leonid activity. The Leonid Multi-instrument Aircraft Campaign (MAC), organized by Dr. Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute), flew across the Atlantic Ocean on the night of Nov. 13/14, conducting shake-down and practice sessions as they flew. To their surprise, they also captured their first HD video multi station data on an early Leonid.

Kim Youmans
Treutlen Co., Georgia
0740-0957 UTC

Yet another clear morning brought slightly increasing Leonid rates -- 4 LEO's this morning vs. just 2 yesterday (Sunday) morning. I discounted a swift meteor that appeared peripherally in the SW -- seemed to line up but there was just not enough accuracy to tell!

The sporadics were more active as opposed to yesterday, helping to keep me awake, but not so the Taurids, which were almost entirely absent the second period. All in all, not much there to forebode the storm that may be brewing...

Mark Davis
Sullivan's Island, South Carolina
0711-0911 UTC

I was able to get 2 hours of observing in this morning beginning at 0711 UT (0211 EST) from Sullivan's Island, SC. Skies were not too good with the limiting magnitude being about 5.30, so I plan to move to another location with better skies for the next two mornings. My first Leonid appeared at 0742, with another seen later in the same observing period. The second hour produced 7 Leonids, the increase in activity reflecting the change in radiant altitude. The brightest meteor of the morning was a -2.0 sporadic.

The NASA / ESA /USAF / CRESTech / LEOC / UWO observing campaign began in earnest last night with video data collected during 0500-1000UT, reported along with my own visual Leonid summary to the Marshall Space Flight Center at hourly intervals. LEO rates never went above 10 per hour this morning...Most notable to me is the extreme faintness of the LEOs relative to Sporadics for the night! Where are the "low-r" Leonids of former years??

Kim Youmans
Treutlen Co., Georgia
0752-1025 UTC

While my Leonid rates barely rose above yesterday's level, with just three per period, the Taurids were nice, particularly the -1 and +1 STA's that appeared within 2 seconds of each other at the beginning of the session. Overall rates from 09:00 to 10:00 UT were on the low side -- I extended that period by about thirty minutes.

On Tuesday evening, locally Nov. 16, at approximately 7:07 pm EST / 6:07 pm CST (November 17, 1999, 0007 UTC), a brilliant fireball lit up the American midwest, travelling slowly from west to east, and apparently breaking apart in transit. The AMS received reports about this event from locations across central North America, from southern Canada to northern Texas (!). Regardless of what was reported at other web sites and in the popular press, this event could NOT have ben associated with the Leonid meteor shower. At the time of this event, North America was completely in the shadow of the Leonid stream, with the radiant located slightly east of the anti-zenith, that is, underfoot. This object was most likely a very bright sporadic fireball (of which there are a few each year of this magnitude), or perhaps reentering space debris.

Neil Bone
Apuldram, West Sussex, UK
0215-0415 UTC

Nov 16-17 looks to have been clear over much of the UK. Low Leonid rates, as yet. Few bright Leonids were seen, with 5 seen in the first hour and 7 seen in the second hour, before altocumulus spread in from the coast. Good luck everyone for 17-18!

We report low activity from Canary Island of La Palma, with 28 Leonids seen in about 3.5 hours (average 8 per hour). No bright meteors and fireballs were seen. The brightest one was -2 magnitude.

What a spectacular night! The skies were as clear as I have seen on a November night in Manassas, Va and the LM was as good as I have seen (5.3)..... Orion seemed to jump out at me when I stepped outside at 3AM. The Leonids were active with a total of 18 seen in 2.5 hours. The highlight was a 4 minute period with 4 LEOs. There were 5 very bright (-3 and -1s) and colorful Leonids (green, yellow/white, and orange). All left 2-4 second trails. Most of the others were very fast.

Kim Youmans
Treutlen Co., Georgia
0748-1000 UTC

My friend Johnny and I gazed long and hard at the dark, transparent sky, clutching our hand warmers, the chill wind biting our faces. The occasional Leonid zipped by, but if we were expecting to see rates indicative of an oncoming storm, we were disappointed. We spotted 17 Leonids in our first hour, but only 11 more in the second. If this keeps up, it's going to be a long, hard, cold night tonight...

a report was also received from the NASA / USAF / UWO visual observing team stationed on the extinct Haleakala volcano on Maui, Hawaii, composed of AMS officers Jim Bedient and Mike Morrow. They reported moderately low Leonid rates of 5-10 per hour (uncorrected) during the final hours of their observing session, which ran from about 1000-1500 UTC.

Near the end of the Nov. 17 period, a lone report from India was received which indicated a noticeable rise in the Leonid activity level. The Leonids were waking up:

Atul Naik
India
2030-2330 UT C

I observed from 2.00am to 5.00 am of Nov 18 ( Local times ), ie. 20.30 UT to 23.30 UT of Nov 17. Leonids noticed were as under: 2.00 am to 3.00 am (13), 3.00am to 4.00am (35), 4.00am to 5.00am (68).

The sky was clear, and the LM was 5.5 at the zenith. A huge fireball was noticed at 2.27 am travelling from east to south, may be brighter than Venus. The Leonids were typical, often leaving trails, but coming fast as the radiant moved towards the zenith. Clearly activity was picking up when I had to fold up on account of sudden gusty and chilly wind.

Casper ter Kuile
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)
Valencia / Alicante, Spain
0125 UTC

Rates are sharply increasing now!!! About 15 minutes ago our visual observers reported about 5 Leonids per minute (300 m/hr)! Keep you informed!

Casper ter Kuile
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)
Valencia / Alicante, Spain
0200-0230 UTC

YES! They did it!

Team "Delingha"of the Dutch Meteor Society located between Valencia and Alicante in Spain reports....We observed many, many, many Leonids falling from the sky! Our experienced visual observers counted about 30 Leonids per minute! The time of the maximum is somewhere between 2 and 2:30 UT approximately. Remind this is a very first and rough estimate!

Mohammad Odeh
Jordanian Astronomical Association (JAS)
about 2200-0400 UTC

During the night the number of meteors kept increasing by both; radio and visual observations. After a very quick discussion with the scientists who were observing from Jordan with JAS. We concluded that Jordan was one of the best locations to observe the Leonids '99 from ! Where the preliminary results show that the peak occurred around 02 AM (04 AM), which is about 40 minutes before the beginning of dawn (so the radiant was high at the peak). Also, the dawn didn't affect the observation because the activity decreased before the beginning of dawn ! Most the participants estimated the maximum ZHR (based on the preliminary results) to be between about 7000 - 10 000 !!

* Total observed number of meteors was:
• Sana'a Abdo (JAS): 2100 meteors, during 4.0 hours effective time.
• Khalid Tell (JAS): 2375 meteors, during 3.6 hours effective time.
• Moh'd Odeh (JAS): 2916 meteors, during 4.3 hours effective time.
• Ahmad Baker (SCS): 3162 meteors, during about 5 hours effective time.

Dr. Robert McNaught, based on one-minute interval, estimated the ZHR to be 7000 +/- 1000, and it occurred from Jordan at 02:04 +/- 2 minutes (UT). At maximum, McNaught observed 60 meteors per minute.

Results: Amazing display. Peak at about 01:54UT, with the radiant almost overhead. An estimated rate of ~70 meteors per minute, i.e. >4,000 meteors per hour, maybe closer to 5,000 meteors per hour. Persistent duration of this rate for ~34 minutes! Most meteors in the magnitude range of 1 to 5, with a few fireballs leaving trails for up to 20 seconds.

Impression: The best meteor shower witnessed by many. Only last years' unexpected Leonids fireball show on the night of November 16-17, 1998 outperformed this year's show, but only from the aspect of bright meteors count, not total number count.

UNBELIEBABLE! AMAZING! INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No words can describe the greatness of the Leonids show from Israel, Mizpeh Ramon.

We and 5 other friends, arrived at 5:00 PM Wednesday, in a small hill in the Middle of the Machtesh Crater, near Mitzpeh Ramon, the Ramon-Wise Observatory. We set up our things, enjoyed nature and company, and started observing at 11:00 PM. We were ALL alone (six 14-year-olds in the middle of nowhere).

We saw here and there a few nice meteors, usually very long and yellow. My friends were really excited Until 12:00 AM, the action grew bigger, as more and more meteors showed. Then we saw a couple of cars come near to our observing site. we welcomed the people with a good morning, and continued our observations Until 1:20 AM, there were so many people there, and the action was really great. we saw about 70 meteors per-hours, and my friends were still shouting in surprise every time they saw a meteor. Again, most meteors were long and yellow. At 3:00 AM, the action was DAMN high. We saw sometimes meteors showing together, and we were so excited. We had the time to Meet an Amateur Astronomer from Buffalo, who came to Israel just for the Leonids. At 3:40 Am, while my friends were asleep, I started seeing a $%^ng storm. There were so many meteors! I woke up my friends, and at 4:30 AM, we were observing an incredible Storm of 4 meteors per second in many occasions, and sometimes even 10 (2 or 3 times such a thing happened). The average of the peak was about 2-3 meteors per second (a one-person's view).

Fireballs- I saw only 2. Both near the horizon. After 4:40, most meteors were VERY bright, sometimes even Fireballs. We didn't see many long-yellow ones anymore. There were so many meteors, we were just overwhelmed. We even sang with another group of people some Israeli songs!!!

Dr. Hans Zekl
Worms / Einhausen, Germany
about 0100-0300 UTC

Weather was bad all day long, but at 0.15 UT the sky became very clear. Leonids were active with bright meteors and trails which glowed for about a second. I did not make accurate notes, but the estimated ZHR was about 120. After 30 minutes the next cloud field covered the sky, but I noted that the western sky was free. I drove about 30 km in that direction. From there I could observe a sharp increase of the numbers of the Leonids. At least every 4 to 5 seconds a bright meteor could be seen. Sometimes one could see 4 at the same time rushing over the sky. Maximum seem to occur at about 1:50 with a second peak at 2:05. At 2:15 the sky become cloudy again and I my observation ended. I think, although I just watched, at the time of maximum ZHR was over 1000.

I never saw such fine display of meteors!

Despite apparently hopeless bad weather over Belgium on November 17, the sky cleared out and it was impossible not to notice the unusual meteor activity in the light polluted city sky. Around 2h UT the Leonids performed in a spectacular way and as the sky had improved so much I decided to attempt counting: these are my results:

Nov.18 02h02 - 02h19 20% cloud lm = 5.0 0.28 h 99 Leonids 1 non Leonid
Nov.18 02h20 - 03h00 30% cloud lm = 4,75 0.67 h 90 Leonids 2 non Leonid

The best rates I have ever seen under such poor sky conditions! The lm was very variable during the observed period due to illuminated low passing thin clouds and this makes the lm value uncertain and likely biased by the better values in the most transparent parts of the sky. I had the feeling to see a replay of the 1993-Perseids which I observed at their best under almost perfect sky, but the current Leonid display was seen under poor circumstances. The real' Leonid rates at perfect sky may have been well 10x higher. Despite a good number of bright Leonids, mostly faint Leonids were counted and fireballs were completely absent as seen from here. After 3h UT more clouds moved in but the number of Leonids was much lower.

Summary report:
only two observing windows, from 00.24 to 00.44 UT and from 01.30 to 02.30 UT; sky clouded for 50% (also 90%) with rain (... water ...) for long period.

Great meteor activity near 02.00 UT, in the second period of clear sky; about 15 meteors for minutes. Bright meteors (two fireballs of -8 with a persistent train for 3-4 minutes). Limiting magn.: 6.0

Hi, my name is Luigi D'Argliano. I am member of UAI Unione Astrofili Italiani and GAV Gruppo Astronomico Viareggio. I observed Leonids meteor shower from Stazzema, a little town in the Apuan Alps, in Tuscany (Italy) at 1100 meters up sea level. I am sorry for my bad English.

The WEATHER was very bad : rain or snow ! but at 1.00 am of local time (0.00 GMT) of 18 November the clouds disappears. The sky was BEAUTIFUL. The limiting magnitude 6.3. From 1.45 (all the time are in local time: GMT = local time - 1) Leonids falls 1 for minute and then from 2:40 the rate increase at 20/25 meteors for minute. The top was from 3:11 to 3:14: 100 meteors in 3 minutes.

My data are the follow: 1.45-1.55 (12), 1.55-2.05 (10), 2.05-2.15 (20), 2.30-2.40 (29), 2.402.50 )155), 2.50-3.00 (192), 3.00-3.10 (244), 3.10-3.20 (245), 3.20-3.30 (133), 3.35-3.45 (99), 3.45-3.55 (61), 3.55-4.00 (17).

At 2.56 a great fireball of -8/-9 magnitude, violet, from Monoceros to Eridanus via Orion belt. A great number of Leonid have a wake.

Well, I wrote the night off too soon! As I was closing down my computer after writing my previous posting, just after 2.00am, I decided to take One Last Look out the window, "just in case", as you do... and saw the Pointers of The Plough breaking through the cloud. Then a streak of light below them...!

Ah ha... :-)

Back on with the jacket(s) and gloves, grab the bag full of cameras and gear, and out into the night again... back behind the Scout Center where I had my memorable encounter with the Hounds of the Baskervilles last night... and cue meteors!

The sky was clear, on and off, for the next two hours, and in that time I saw almost 100 Leonids. Some very bright - but none I'd class as fireballs - but most mag 1 or 2. Very few persistent trains. Colors? Predominantly white and ice blue, quite appropriate for the sub zero conditions.

Here in Norfolk, England the sunset was brilliant in an apparently cloudless deep blue and cold sky. Almost at sunset though, a sun pillar extending upwards two solar diameters and to its right a weakly colored sun dog betrayed the existence of a band of icy cirrus cloud just above the horizon.

Thus it stayed with clear bright stars until about 22hrs UT when the cirrus spread and veiled the Moon. Nonetheless, a stiff north westerly wind brought the possibility that it would clear later.

Alarm was set for 0130 and the supreme effort was made to get up. Cirrus still shrouded the sky yet allowed first magnitude stars to shine through. And there they were! Short, fast stabs of light hazed by the clouds and as bright or brighter than the few stars. Oddly enough they seemed to arrive in pairs. One near the zenith left a glowing train some 10 - 15 degrees long for just half a second, no more. Another almost as bright was a stray, travelling much slower and almost towards the radiant. Hourly rates? I was too entranced by the spectacle. In 30 minutes the bright meteors were coming in at maybe two or more per minute. After that the cloud thickened and nothing could be seen.

At 0300 first magnitude stars were again visible as hazy blobs. Leonids still stabbed at the skies but less frequently now, perhaps half as frequently. 0400 UT had the same hazy sky but in 10 minutes or so only one bright Leonid was seen.

Without that cirrus they would have been truly spectacular. Yet they were spectacular enough and I shall always remember those short fast bright streaks marking comet stuff coming in to Earth at unimaginable speeds.

Shortly after 2:00am GMT, through slowly clearing skies we had a burst of Leonid activity lasting around 50 minutes, with MANY Leonids visible at intervals of just a few seconds at it's best. It was certainly no "storm" but still quite a sight to see.

Despite dense cloud 4 observers from the Ayrshire Astronomical Society assembled at Bonnyton House and kept an anxious vigil watching the Meteosat images of the cloud edge slowly proceeding southward towards them. The cloud began breaking up shortly before 02.00UT. As the cloud cleared to leave some reasonable sized hole the sky was full of shooting stars. Just after 2.00 one observer counted 16 meteors in 1.5 minutes seen through a hole only opening about a quarter of the sky, over another three minute period 30 meteors were counted in a similar area of clear sky. Formal recording began at 02:07 UT. There were so many meteors only numbers were counted . The 4 observers watched different but overlapping segments of sky with one recorder to mark down each "fix" on a meteor and eliminate double calls. Almost all the Leonid meteors had short lived greenish trains duration varying from less than a second to a few seconds for the brightest meteors. Only one persistent train lasting perhaps 20 seconds was recorded and that well after the peak was over. The brightest meteor sighted was probably about magnitude -4, but an unseen meteor lit up the sky at around 02.00 UT. I noticed a strange appearance with a couple of meteors where a spark like object seemed to come off at an angle from the line of flight of an only moderately bright meteor.

I just returned from our Leonid campaign. We had to travel 600 km south by car, into Spain, from our initial location in SW France, on the day of November 17, because of the weather.

At the small village of Xalos, some 80 km south of Valencia, we observed the most impressive meteor display I ever experienced, under a completely clear sky. Near 2:00-2:30 UT (Nov. 18), Leonids appeared at an average rate of some 30-40 per minute, equivalent (very roughly) to a ZHR near 4000. Due to the Poisson-distribution, we experienced small burst in which sometimes 5-6 Leonids appeared at one instance, shooting away in all directions. The sight was astonishing, and we actually had a hard time keeping up with counting; this really was at the limit of our grasping abilities. I suggest this certainly may be called a storm'. It was amazing, meteors appeared everywhere in the sky, and each few minutes I had to take a short break in counting to regain my breath' a little bit. Marvelous!

One thing that struck me, by the way, was the complete lack of bright Leonids, especially given the high activity level. We did not see any Leonids brighter than -3 to -4, and those only in minute quantities. It reminds me of the alfa Monocerotids where a similar phenomenon was apparent.

At the end of the night, we all were exhausted, physically, and mentally. I personally certainly did experience some effect on my consciousness and functioning; during the peak, my recorder suddenly jammed, causing an unrestrained reaction of panic with me. It took me several minutes just to have my brain realize that it was just a matter of a full tape that had to be replaced. Under these conditions, you just can't think straight anymore, it seems.... These impressive phenomenon really get on you!

Just as a historic note, and to point out the uniqueness of what happened this night of 17-18 November 1999; rates at least a similar level or better have only been observed with certainty 3 times earlier this century (Draconids of 1933 and 1946, and Leonids of 1966). The only thing that in my opinion can match this meteor storm in impressiveness, is a solar eclipse. Forget about Hale-Bopp etc.; for me, THIS was THE celestial event of the nineties!

Our 3-member (Ursa astr. assoc of Finland) team got twice clouded out in Southern France; but thanks to our meteorologist friends back home (sitting beside satellite maps etc) we got the word to drive to Spain as fast as possible and onwards to south. Some 40 kilometers north from Barcelona we found clear sky and a great spot in hills. As soon as we stepped out of the car numerous Leonids were seen and the incredible, almost continuous bombarding continued to climb up. The maximum seemed to us to have been between 0155-0215, but it was followed by couple of intense periods around 0220-0235 too. At best 7 Leonids impressive, trail -leaving Leonids streaked simultaneously in formation upwards from radiant, at maximum time we were shouting almost continuously of as the meteors were almost incessant, often 2 or more rarely 3 simultaneously visible, repeatedly several in row with 1 second intervals. It gave the impression of ZHR between 1000 and 2500, a very rough,untrustworthy (feelings) estimate. We have a good tape with counting so studying that later on gives more of an actual result.

Great show, the definitively biggest meteor night of our lives so far. A great timing in the forecasts of David Asher and RobMcNaught.

Congratulations to those who came up with such an astonishingly accurate prediction for the latest Leonid meteor shower!!

I invited several friends, less starry-eyed than myself, over for dinner and then stargazing in a park near my home in Barcelona. We started viewing at about 12:30 am local time, (that is, 23:30 UT on November 17) but only spotted about ten meteors in an hour, as Leo's head became just barely visible over the horizon. Several of my guests started to complain of the cold and of the need to get to work the next morning, and frankly I was starting to doubt the predictions, so we called it a night.

After 2am, I saw three bright meteors (comparable to Sirius, which I could see in the same field of view) in less than five minutes out of my apartment window, in spite of a powerful streetlight. At this point I decided I had to return to the park. I threw on my coat and sweater again and grabbed a sleeping bag and a blanket. On the other hand, I FORGOT MY KEYS.

I arrived in the park at 2:25 and quickly settled down on a bluff high above the city where, by lying down, I could avoid all direct city lights in my field of view. The sky was unusually clear by local standards, and there were no clouds whatsoever. To give an idea of the limiting magnitude, I could clearly see the paws of Ursa Major, as well as the little triangle of stars next to Capella in Auriga (as I recall this little triangle is called "the kids"?) , and several of the stars in Orion's bow.

Starting at 2:25, my meteor count reached 100 at 3:02, 200 at 3:15, 225 at 3:25, and 260 at 3:45, at which point I decided I needed some sleep. Many meteors were comparable in brightness to Capella or Sirius, with trails visible for two seconds or so. The only exceedingly bright ones were two very short yellowish fireballs launched eastward (towards the horizon) out of Leo's tail, which lit up the sky around them like lightning. I also observed one bright non-Leonid coming straight up out of Orion through Taurus.

Preliminary results from a clear night with city-brightened cloud from Pretoria/Johannesburg region in South Africa. After the moon had set at 1am local time a crowd of 50 people watched the skies till dawn at 6am.

The first Leonids arrived as soon as the radiant was above the horizon which was the same time of 1am. Approximately 6 fireballs seen in total. The counts gradually increased to 3 Leonids per second average by 4am. The sky was hampered by reflected light and reports from more west in darker skies indicated more fireballs and more Leonids than seen over the skies at Nkwe (Johannesburg/Pretoria)Magnitudes ranged between -5 to +5.

Sherman Williams
Avonport, Nova Scotia
0330-0700 UTC

When evening of Nov 17th began in Avonport, Nova Scotia, the sky was completely overcast with light snow flurries but by 10 pm local time (UT-4h) the sky began to show signs of clearing. When I began observing, Nov 18 at 03:30 UT, the sky was over 9/10 clear, Moon, just past 1st quarter, was close to setting, temperature -4 degrees C and over most of the sky I could see 5th magnitude stars without difficulty. In Auriga, near overhead, I could see to the 6th and in Leo, near the horizon, to about 4th magnitude.

A spectacular,-4 magnitude meteor, sporting a long trail, began my Leonid observing session. The trail appeared to be undulating as the meteor rushed across the north at a low elevation from NE to NW. Its track was less than 20 degrees above and almost parallel to the horizon. Associated color was reddish orange. This was a great introduction, however, this night's Leonids in Nova Scotia was not to develop into last year's show. During the course of my 3.5h observing session two other very nice bright bolide bursts were seen. One at magnitude -5 or -6, occurred at 05:14:30 UT, across the lower end of the "Great Oval", beginning east of Canis Minor, its brightest burst occurred between Procyon and Sirius, fading out above Canis Major, at Orion's heels. Its train persisted for 20 to 25 seconds naked-eye and nearly a minute in binoculars. This was the most exciting meteor observed during the observing period. The second was a -4 or -5, at 06:30:35 UT which passed near overhead, from east to west, below Auriga. Part of its track was in clear sky, part was backlighting thin cloud. Cloud began to move in about 05:50 AST; it got to be a serious pest from about 06:10 AST . With the continuing advance of cloud and the low numbers of meteors, I decided to end my observing at 07:00 UT. I've since heard from another observer in the area that between 07:30 and 08:00 UT, the sky became quite clear again and remained so with more meteors being seen.

Another friend reported seeing a spectacular meteor about 08:32 UT coming from the southward, streaking across the sky with a bright burst as it disappeared to the NNW.

In the 3.5 hours of observing solo, I enjoyed three really bright meteor bursts, recorded a total of 15 Leonids, 2 Taurids and 2 sporadics. Comments were recorded on tape at the site (my backyard) as events took place. Certainly, it made me appreciate how special last year's Leonid show was for Nova Scotians!

Well the storm must have ended before it got to the east coast, since the hours 3 UT to 6 UT were very slow. Saw no Leonids before radiant rise (0350) but did see 2 nice earth grazers during the next hour. Then slow till 6 UT. After that, it was very reminiscent of last year...although not as many fireball class meteors, the population index must have been very high. Rates seemed to be near 20 per hour for the next 3 1/2 hours with bushels of -2, -1, and 0 meteors. Many minutes had multiple subzero meteors. One highlight early was one of the earth grazers being passed in the opposite direction by a Taurid...they were only a degree or two apart.

Another spectacular night in Virginia! The skies were clear again and excellent LM for Manassas, VA, ..LM = 5.2. I observed from 12AM - 4:30AM (5:00 - 9:30UT), Teff = 4.0 hrs.. The Leonids started slowly as the radiant rose. I also had much light pollution facing East. By about 7:30UT, the Leonid rates started to pick up. The period 8:00 to 9:00UT showed 26 LEOs with two 1 minute periods which had 4 and 3 LEOs respectively. There we two occasions with multiple trails visible. My Zhr computation shows a Zhr of 110. The Leonids remained active until I stopped viewing. There were no fireballs, but six with 2 to 5 second trails. Most were near the radiant, white, and very fast. The highlight of the evening was a sporadic bright green -4 fireball at 5:07UT.

My wife Lynne and I went to the mountains of West Virginia to observe the Leonids. We were camped near Lost River State Park. It got down to 18 degrees F. just before dawn, and was clear and cold the whole night. From 7 UT to 11 UT I counted 201 Leonids, most of which were rather faint (~2.5 magn. average). Hourly rates were 29, 46, and 60 Leonids per hour.

Looks like the east coast missed the peak as the predictions seem to have been on this year. I only had about average activity in nearly 6 hours of observing...highest hourly rate was 20. I haven't looked at the mag. distribution yet, but my impression was all the magnitude classes were about equally represented. Quite a few trains and negative magnitude meteors, but only two Leonid fireballs.

What started out slowly, without promise, wound up being one the best meteor-observing nights I've ever had. I knew of the European storm before I went out to my site, but grew patently discouraged when, after two hours and Leo rising right on up into the sky, no Leonids were seen, at all. Period three, however, yielded 19 Leonids. The count grew each hour as the radiant climbed higher, the hourly rates becoming 19, 27, 41, 61 -- period 6 was divided up into two periods, a (Teff=1.0) and b (Teff=.5) of 61 and 30 meteors respectively. During the last 40 minutes, I was seeing better than 1 meteor per minute. Not the great, fantastic night I had hoped for, but all in all, a very excellent night of observations. The brightest meteors were all primarily Taurids, with the Leonids on the dim side, though I had quite a few +2's.

A preliminary count off my written pages 126 - 526 AM EST (626 - 1026 UT) all sky LM7.4 gives Leonid rates 17, 16, 33, 52. In the 2 hours preceding those rates I saw only 5 Leonids. Brightest was an orange -6m behind me with train 30 seconds. It lit my clipboard and the ground as I was facing east. No dead time for recording as I was using paper folded in four vertical sections and writing by feel alone. A dead slow start to the night and an active finish. The last was my best useable hour since the Geminids of 1996. All the clouds that came across during the day and early evening had dissipated.

Hopped in the car looking for a deserted country road, and began viewing at 2:35 a.m. Central. Beautiful clear skies here, and cold. (but a walk in the park for our northern friends!) About 35 degrees. Lone trip, this one... can't get the kids enthused, and the Mrs. would much rather sleep than shiver with me!

Observed for 70 minutes... looks like I should have gotten out earlier, from the sounds of reports from California! But,... not a bad show, either. I saw a total of 30 Leonids. About 6 or 8 exhibited beautiful long yellowish trains of moderate duration. Most were very fast, short-lived, and white in color. The highlight was what one could only class as a fireball ! It must have been a large one (for a Leonid)! Extremely bright, and "in my face"... it traversed half the sky traveling S.S.E. to N.N.W., with an extremely long tail of dissipating fragments! I watched as it fragmented into 3 or 4 individual pieces, each with their own trail !!! WOW!!! Still trying to close my jaw. That one, made the whole thing worthwhile! They should time these things for the 4th of July!!! :)

Just a quick summary here. Observed for approximately 6 hours 17/18 NOV (UT) from Dawson Hill, Fern Creek, Kentucky. We averaged 8-10 per hour (including several sporadics with a radiant to the northwest) until 4am local (0900 UT) 0900-1000 UT was easily best hour with an estimated 30-35 LEO. At 500 am local (EST) (1000 UT) meteor activity decreased drastically.

I'm just getting home after observing this morning. I thought the Leonids as seen from here in South Louisiana were a little less than I expected, but after reading some other people's experiences, I think we did pretty well! In a nutshell, I observed from 1 to 5 AM CST (7 to 11 hours UT) with an estimated limiting magnitude of about 6.0 and a teff of probably 3.5 hours. I saw 66 Leonids (about 18 per hour) plus 19 sporadics. Some of both reached fireball brightness.

The two highlights were a -4 sporadic that appeared to burst three times, changing colors as it did -- there were distinct reds, oranges, and blues. A spectacular -6 Leonid left a train near the Pleiades for over 3 minutes, which slowly appeared to rotate counterclockwise a little more than 90 degrees as it faded.

A few folks from our local astronomy club and some friends gathered at a ranch in Peyton, CO for our annual Leonid party. They had been predicting a front to come through but it managed to come through with a minimum of clouds so we really had ideal viewing conditions except for some wind. For most of us, this was going to be an all night affair so we had our potluck first and kept checking the skies -- nothing really until close to midnight. As we laid on lawn chairs and sleeping bags and looked to the east we began to see a few meteors and soon Leo was rising and we saw many Leonids over the next few hours. Most were fast and left little faint trails behind. Most did seem to come from the radiant and there were some sporadics and Taurids as well.

About 0243 MST we suddenly saw the sky light up with a huge burst of light just a little south of Regulus -- we estimated the mag at about -10 but none of us had ever seen any this bright before and didn't know what to compare it with. It lit up the entire landscape and seem to *pop* and go out leaving a fat glowing blob behind. This glowing patch, about 5 degrees across persisted for about 15 minutes with the naked eye and another 10 min. with the binoculars. Needless to say we were cheering and shouting and otherwise going crazy. That one Leonid made the whole night worthwhile. I stayed awake until almost sunrise and was able to still see some faint Leonids even as the sky brightened. Certainly the shower didn't compare to last year's fireball show but we had another wonderful Leonid party without a blizzard so that was enough for us.

The Leonids never did pick up for us in Arizona. We went out under crystal clear skies between 2:45 and 3:30 a.m. once the moon had set, and saw only 12 meteors. Three were not Leonids. All of them were weak and short except for one slow yellow fireball but this was not as bright, either, as the fireballs we saw last year. During the same period a year ago we were seeing over 100 per hour, too. Oh, well. Sounds like were just weren't in the right place at the right time this year.

Just a quick note to give a taste of what happened here. Just got in from the Anza Borrego desert area and observed under clear skies with LM at 6.0 for 3.75 hours. That is between 9:30 - 13:15 hrs UT,(1:30 to 5:15 am local). Activity seemed very slow at first....partly due to lingering clouds from a recent passing front. Then it cleared up by 1:30 am. Then activity began to pick up....but no where near last years peak from this location. I think my best hour will be around 50 to 60 Leonids. A lot of +3 magnitude meteors with relatively few bright members. Did pick up a -5 and a -3 that I remember. From this location in S. California, the Leonids weren't so hot.

Sheldon Remington
South Point, Island of Hawaii
1200-1437 UTC

Observing Summary: 1200-1220 UT: 5 Leonids, 6 non-Leonids, 1225-1310 UT: 34 Leonids, 5 non-Leonids, 1345-1437 UT: 43 Leonids, 12 non-Leonids

Brightness: brightest Leonid was about -5 mag. many (perhaps 50%) Leonids were 0.0 or brighter; this is the main point where I feel my observations differed from the bulk of other reports. It was really quite similar to last year's "fireball shower" in this respect. Hue: uniformly bluish-white, verging on greenish-white. Trains: roughly 85% of the Leonids left glowing trains which persisted for 1 to 5 seconds. Temporal distribution: some clumping, i.e., groups of 3-4 Leonids within a 30-second period. But not as much clumping as last year.

I carry my quick report of Leonids observation as below. About the weather, Nov. 16/17 and 18/19 are very clear and fine, but on maximum day, it was very bad weather on Nov. 17/18 almost in Japan. However, fortunately I managed to observe Leonids during short time early in the morning on Nov. 18. On Nov. 17/18, The Leonid meteors were very faint and most Leonid meteors were three or less magnitude. No fireball appeared during the observation. On Nov. 18/19, many Leonid meteors appeared. I found 3 or 4 Leonid meteors per minutes on maximum time. However, there was little fireball appeared.

In Nov. 16, I made a phone call to Mr. Ming Li, and he told me that according to Peter Jenniskens' calculation, there would be a second peak occurred in Nov. 19 morning and China would be right place for look. I was on leaving for the Leonids at that time and I could not figured out the details from Peter's web site in such a short time. So I suppose that it meant there could be a smaller peak near the 4:00 am Beijing time of Nov. 19 and passed the message to several experienced observers and asked them to keep another night for more meteors. I myself came across some accidental stuff which made me not be able to observe for 18/19 night as I planed before.

The observations for 18/19 night by several Chinese amateurs confirmed the second peak, and this time there were many bright fireballs. They will send their report after they compile it. They saw about 4 or 5 times more meteors than the night before... And they are exciting for watching a -3/-4 fireball travelling and turning into a -12 one (looked even larger than the Moon and its flash made the eye uncomfortable), with train lasting for more than 20 minutes.

It is reported that peaks occurred both around 18:30 UT and 20:00 UT, Nov. 18. Reports from southern part of China showed less activity than the one in Beijing but also showed more activity than previous night.

Kim Youmans
Treutlen Co., Georgia
November 19, 1999
0756-1000 UTC

Well it finally had to happen...as I finished this morning's observations, I saw clouds rolling in from the east and the Atlantic. Thus it appears this will be the 16th and final meteor observation this month. I'm trying to remember what it was like to go to bed and sleep all night!

The Leonids have apparently resumed their normally meager ways, with just 6 in the first period and 4 the second. The sporadics were rather busy, especially the first period. After last night's busy peak, I may find it hard to get back into the regular 10-per hour routine! Break out those long johns and bring on those Geminids!

• Aerospace Corp. 1999 Leonid Monitoring
• Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) Leonids '99 Expedition
• European Space Agency (ESA) 1999 Leonids
• International Meteor Organization (IMO)
• Leonid Multi-instrument Aircraft Campaign (MAC)
• NASA Science News 1999 Leonids

Last updated: November 21, 1999 at 1700 UTC.

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