What was your experience with the Leonids like?

[chris_hansen]

Here in norhtern California it was a full blown storm. Did

anyone out there have a good experience photographing the Leonid

Meteor shower?

[bobatkins]

Reuters reported this about the Leonids as seen from Asia (the best

location this time):

 

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<em>"NASA said preliminary reports indicate the storm produced about

1,000 meteors an hour, in line with expectations but far

below the 150,000 meteors an hour seen in 1966, the most intense

Leonid bombardment in recent memory"</em>

 

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Maybe next year?

[rob___]

Seems I got mixed up and missed the shower. After a week of raging

storms and inches of rain, the sky was crystal clear in the early

hours of the 17th and I was sleeping like a baby. I caught a few

meteors as the sun rose on my weary way to work. I thought that I

might see a few straggles tonight, but noooo! Pouring rain again.

Mother Nature is mocking me.

[jason_crader]

Chris, the skies were clear in Arkansas, so I was able to get up early and shoot the shower. I got up at 3 am yesterday (17th) to photograph the shower. I wasn't born when the last shower occured but I thought it was well worth getting up early to take some photos of the meteors.

I estimate that I probably saw around a hundred meteors an hour. Two meteors were exceptional but unfortunately I did not capture them on film.

If you missed the shower this year, it may occur again next year so if the skies are clear I would definately take the time to photograph this special sight.

[bill_palmer]

We had a good experience in central Missouri. The sky was remarkably clear. From midnight to about 3:00 a.m. we counted about 200 meteors/hour with many fireballs of yellow or green. Some blue-white fireballs and a few orange and purple. Several were bright enough to illuminate the ground like lightning. A few had trains that lasted for several minutes before dissapating. One seemed to be falling straight down in a spiral and giving off sparks like a fourth-of-July skyrocket. Once we saw five medium bright metors streaking across the sky like a squadron of fighters.

 

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I took about 20 photos and have hopes I caught at least one of the spectacular fireballs.

[carlyn_iverson1]

Thanks to you all who are contributing stories of their experience with this meteor shower. In Minnesota it was cloudy and I appreciate having the experience vicariously.

[john_womack]

Here in the southern Blue Ridge mountains, the 16th was cloudy and

rainy, with fog all night; however, several times between 1:30 and

2:15 the skies cleared enough to see some of the show. When I could

see some of the sky, we were getting about one good meteor a minute

with two of them covering about 40% of the sky, and leaving a trail of

dust in the sky. Perhaps 4 or 5 meteors were visible through the fog

as they streaked overhead. The night of the 17th was completely clear

and nothing moved.

[collin_houseal]

Here in Memphis it was perfectly clear, so I decided to forgo 5 or so

hours of sleep and left the house around 2:30am to drive about 25 miles

out of town. I live on the far east edge of the city and just headed

further east on Hwy 64. I set up the tripod, kicked back on the

tailgate of my truck and stared heavenward.

 

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It was a beautiful sight... probably an average of 1 to 5 per minute

going in all directions. It was fairly easy to trace most of them back

to Leo. I shot almost a full roll of Fuji NHG-II 800, and got plenty of

star trail photos... but no meteors. Oh well, but it was still a

beautiful, quiet night with a good show! I used both 24/2.8 and 50/1.8

lenses with exposures anywhere in the 2 to 15 minute range.

 

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Lots of yellowish-white ones, but some (as posted above) were brilliant

colors, and some bright enough to mimic daylight, with trails lasting

several minutes.

[steve_k.]

Hi.

Here at Seattle, I got the ususal cloudy to rainy weather. Checked the

infarad GEOs- 9 weather satelite photo every few hours. Finally it

cleared up and out I went. I was only able to see 7 - 8 bright streaks

in the sky. Then the clouds moved in again.

 

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My astronomy professor said that the peak of the meteor shower occured

16 hours than predicted time. So for those of you who missed it, don't

feel bad because when it happened (peak hours), the meteor shower was

actually in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

[steve_k.]

Correction.

I meant to say, "the peak of the Leonid meteor shower occured 16 hours

earlier than the predicted time." Thanks.

[brad_hutcheson]

Unfortunately I missed it too. I was off from work the last two days, and had planned to drive to my parents farm Monday night, but it clouded up where I live so I waited until Tuesday morning to go. My mother said she got up about 3:00 a.m. Tuesday and saw about 14 in 40 minutes. I did the same this morning, and didn't see any that could be associated with the Leonids. In fact I only saw one the entire night. Maybe I'll have better luck with the Geminids next month.

 

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For what it's worth, I was looking at the orbit data of Temple-Tuttle, and although I wish there had been an explaination or the numbers, this years orbit looked similar to 1965's. Since there was no explaination the small differences may really be large, but with a little luck next year will be a rival to 1966. I guess we'll all discuss it again next year!

[william_castleman]

I was able to capture two small meteors after exposing four rolls

of film on November 17th and 18th in North Central Florida

(Gainesville and Chiefland). I had a F2 with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 set

at f/2.8 and an EOS A2 with a EF20-35mm set at either 24 or 20mm and

f/2.8 mounted on a Losmandy G-11 equatorial mount and aimed at

different constellations East of the Leonid radiant. I was using

Kodak PPF-400 and PJM-640. Exposures on the 17th were between 3 and 5

minutes duration because of city sky glow. Exposures at the dark sky

location in Chiefland on the 18th were 5 minutes. The two meteor

captures were on the 17th with attendant sky glow. Photography on the

18th from the dark sky site yielded much higher quality astrographs of

constellations, but no meteors. Broken cloud cover and fog were only

moderate problems. I will load images at:

http://www.wlcastleman.com/astro/astro1.htm during the next several

days.

Experiences from this year indicate to me the need for: 1)

Planning better to get to a dark sky location next year; and 2) Using

two wide-angle lenses instead of a wide angle and normal or short

telephoto lens. I hope others who were more successful will share

their experiences and images.

[niki_crosby]

I drove an hour and a half outside of New Orleans to northern Louisiana with a friend of mine. We arrived at our location in the middle of a field by 3am - but as we drove I thought there was a lightening storm because I kept seeing the sky light up through the trees as we drove. Once we arrived we realized there were huge meteors lighting up the sky. From 3am - 5:30 am i feel like I mustve seen thousands of meteors. Many large ones with tails that zig zagged and stayed visible for minutes after the meteor had passed.

I shot one and a half rolls with Fuji 800 120. It was my first time shooting at night I kept the exposures between two and 20 minutes. I cant drop off my film until tomorrow but I will be posting by Tuesday! It was a morning I will remember for the rest of my life.

[pixseal]

I had my sons awake me at 1 am (PST) and we drove to a remote site. We observed about 3 - 5 meteors per minute. I took 100 digital images of 8 seconds each - I only captured 5 meteor trails.

 

The best image can be seen at <A HREF="http://www.kjsl.com/~dave/misc/CRW_0632.jpg">http://www.kjsl.com/~dave/misc/CRW_0632.jpg</A>, although not that impressive. (The meteor trail was very dim and is noticeable only when cranking the brightness way up.)

[jay_piper]

I observed from Sanibel Island, FL, with clear skies and nice view of Milky Way. Saw several meteors per minute for four hours until dawn, including 3 fireballs that lit up landscape and left minutes-long persistent trails slowly twisted by upper-atmosphere winds. Lots of "look they're over there now" comments as smaller meteors seemed to come in bunches, and "Wow!s" for brighter meteors with few-seconds perstistent trails. Shot 800 "Max Zoom" with 28mm at f/3.5, f/4-4.5 and f/5.6. Got 5 "typical" meteors (no fireballs)on separate frames out of 30 shot, with dew spoiling several frames before I noticed. Each very faint meteor trail showed a color change - green at one end, orange at other, all consistent away from the radiant in Leo. F/3.5 to 4.5 gave nice <60 sec constellation portraits and 5 minute or so star trails. F/5.6 gave a dramatic reduction in number of stars recorded - only 4th mag or so trailed vs numerous stars well below 6th mag on shots at wider aperatures, as if a threshold in film sensitivity was crossed stopping down to f/5.6.

 

Overall I was glad I focussed on watching with family vs. investing too much attention to photos with one slow lens - I watched enough to enjoy and share the show.

 

A relative shooting with a new 'Dimage 7' Minolta digital camera (60 seconds "bulb" shots at "ISO 800" senstivity) got a nice frame of 4 meteors, one a minor fireball, all with Orion, Sirius, Gemini etc at 28mm equivalent - best shot of our group, a stunning black and white print resulted from his digital efforts.

 

FYI Ding Darling NWR drive is closed to all traffic through end of year, but one trail can be hiked from visitor center, with lots of construction close to trail.

 

I suggest Bailey Tract for foot exploration, or better yet - the Tarpon Bay kayak rentals until road re-opens in 2002. Self-guided kayak trail was spectacular. Tides in Tarpon Bay are variable and lag ocean side by 90 min. according to rental place; low tide exposed more marine life but made for a few shallow scrapes and swift flow out of tidal channels. Some families in canoes (more unwieldy in tight tidal channels than kayaks) were heard to be testing their relationships under those conditions.

[ederkes]

In Eastern North Carolina, the skies were clear and there were several meteors per minute, some of them quite bright. I had three cameras set up on tripods and shot a roll of film in each, but I only captured two decent meteors on film, crossing the Big Bipper above a treeline. I didn't get to enjoy the show much myself. I spent most of my time wiping the dew that constantly reformed on the lenses within minutes.<div></div>

[ricardojmendez]

Cloudy.

 

<p>I managed to get 3 decent shots out of about 40 frames, with exposure times of usually 5 minutes. Even the best of these is rather simple, and I <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/455592">uploaded it to my portfolio here</a> only as a corollary to a question about film for the meteor shower.

 

<p>However, leaving out the photographic results, the experience was great. Most meteors could be seen through the clods, lighting up the sky. Just amazing.