Leonids not so good this year
darwiniacat and I went ~way up north into southern Pennsylvania (c. 40 miles out from home) to find a reasonably dark location to look at the meteor shower. Sitting there, freezing our ...es off, we each saw one meteor that could probably be a Leonid. One was a middling-bright streak that went across an eighth of the sky and the other a nice fireball that went across around 30% of sky.
There were also two others that almost certainly were just sporadic (background, non-Leonid) meteors. One short and dim, almost 90 degrees to the others, going straight down into the south-east. The last was odd, it seemed to be slow, tumbling and fuzzy, almost like a spinning sparkler seen from a really bad angle on July 4th. It lasted the same time as the others but only crossed 6 degrees or so of the sky.
All in all, not much for nearly three hours of watching! Apparently, we weren't the only ones who had that experience. Several pros and reporters in the field said things like "The worst meteor shower I've ever seen ...", and more. Ref:
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/robbritt
Still a fun time to hang out in the boonies, looking at the sky and away from the city's noise, light and crowds. The next show is in December, on 13-14, and should be better, being a stabler and more reliable one called the Geminids.
There were also two others that almost certainly were just sporadic (background, non-Leonid) meteors. One short and dim, almost 90 degrees to the others, going straight down into the south-east. The last was odd, it seemed to be slow, tumbling and fuzzy, almost like a spinning sparkler seen from a really bad angle on July 4th. It lasted the same time as the others but only crossed 6 degrees or so of the sky.
All in all, not much for nearly three hours of watching! Apparently, we weren't the only ones who had that experience. Several pros and reporters in the field said things like "The worst meteor shower I've ever seen ...", and more. Ref:
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/robbritt
Still a fun time to hang out in the boonies, looking at the sky and away from the city's noise, light and crowds. The next show is in December, on 13-14, and should be better, being a stabler and more reliable one called the Geminids.