Okanagan Centre Leonids 2001 Images Leonids 2001 Predictions of a "meteor storm" for the early morning hours of November 18th, 2001 sparked a keen interest from our members not to miss this possible "once in a lifetime event". As the afternoon of November 17th progressed, it became apparent that the southern British Columbia interior was going to be blessed with clear skies. Since long range travel plans were not going to be required (just warm clothing!) most members were able to enjoy the show from  their own backyards or for a group of us, a short trip to Big White Ski Resort was in order. Thirteen members and non-members convoyed up to the resort and set up in one of their huge level parking areas where Jim Tisdale, our National Rep, was able to arrange to have the lights shut off. This gave us excellent dark skies (mag 6.7 est) with unobstructed horizons in all directions. This allowed those of us whom had brought telescopes to enjoy some observing under the well deserved clear skies.  The show really started about 02:00 PST and went on until well past 05:00 PST. A few of the residents of the Resort also came down to watch from the parking lot  and the non-stop ohh's and aww's from all of us could be heard as the shower carried on. Again, thanks to Big White Ski Resort for turning off the lights for us and allowing us to use their parking lot for such a memorable event. Please take the time to read some of the observing reports from our members.

Leonid Observing Reports Simon Klaudt, Rossland, BC .Wow! What a night for me at the Nancy Green Summit! I woke at 0115 wondering whether this was going to be worth it.  With a coffee in hand I went outside the house here in Rossland at 0130 and looked up into the southern skies with the bright streetlight  shining just over my left shoulder. Where is this meteor storm?  There's nothing happening!  I momentarily distracted myself doing something else, and then returned my gaze to the south. ZIP, ZAP, ZONG!!! Three very bright meteors heading west at about 45 degrees elevation within 5 seconds.  I then knew that it was going to be worth the 20 to 30 minutes trip to the summit at 1575 metres. Along the way, driving at 60 to 70 km/h, I was continually witnessing meteors off to the NW and north, as my south view was blocked by mountains.  I also noticed cars parked at convenient viewpoints along the way with people gathered and gazing at the heavenly sights. My goal was to park at one of the three turnouts on the west side of the summit which would give me an east to NW view of the skies with only the N and NE blocked by mountain. Other people were already there when I arrived, completely in a party mode, doing with drugs and music what the skies couldn't.  But they certainly appreciated the long trains of bright meteors that were occurring after 0200.  They had sleeping bags and blankets, and warm coats, parkas, etc. and were lying on the ground looking up, whereas I was standing but warm as well. The first thing that impressed me was that I was seeing meteors flicking by along the horizon as well as at the zenith.  And true to form, all the radiants were from Leo ( that majestic feline ).  There were only a few errant meteors, but they were impressive too; I remember one in particular that flipped by from north to south at mid altitude just to the west.  But all the others were true to form. I was also impressed with the fireballs!  They were quite frequent all night long but the two that impressed me most occurred at 0316 and 0318. The 0316 meteor zipped by from east to west and exploded in Taurus just west of Saturn and north of Alderbaran.  Its train was visible to my naked eye for about ten minutes within a very tight circle. The second bolide at 0318 was to the north at about 135 degrees to Polaris, using Polaris as the centre of a circle.  To be astronomical about this, it was in  between Ursa Minor and Draco.  Its persistance lasted about 10 minutes as well and seemed somewhat "comma-like".  I wouldn't be surprised that this was the same noted fireball described by Guy Mackie. A third fireball occurred behind my back as I was gazing to the NE zenith.  I know that it happened because it seemed as if a photographic flash had gone off in the sky.  The ground was lit quite brightly for that instant.  But I don't remember seeing any persistence train with it. By the way, I had left the partiers at about 0300, when they decided they were going to light a campfire on the turnout.  I had moved to the third turnout where I was undisturbed except for passing trucks and rigs. Between 0340 and 0400, I sat in the car to warm myself but watched the show through the windshield, side windows, and sunroof. I called it quits at 0400 and headed off to Castlegar, and then to Trail, and Rossland.  Along the way I still saw the occasional very bright meteor or fireball.  Quite extraordinary! I JUST DON'T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!!! ( 0634 )!!! I was just looking out my bedroom window to the east and SE trying to see if I could spot Mercury in my binoculars.  Before I got them to my eye, a meteor flashed by from SW to NE with a very bright streak.  And this at a half hour before sunrise.  Still haven't spotted Mercury; it's in the low clouds along the eastern horizon.  Maybe I will be lucky! I have spotted Mercury at 0641 just above the clouds which puts it at 4 degrees elevation and 120 degrees azimuth.  (according to the Dance of the Planets) That's it for now.  I hope it is a good read.

Guy Mackie, Kelowna, BC .Big White Ski Area Kelowna BC 1656 meters Vis Lim Mag 6.7 (reported by Ron Scherer) Clear all night long! At 9:10pm November 17th a convoy of 10 vehicles (loaded with 13 enthusiastic astronomers with their telescopes and other astro toys) left the Black Mountain Store rendezvous and snaked east on Hwy 33. Meteor activity was apparent but slow, on arrival at the Happy Valley parking area at Big White and many enjoyed and shared views of popular Messier (and other) objects. Everyone settled into meteor watching by midnight,... between cocoa, tea and sparking up chemical hand warmers. As predicted, the real show began at 2:00am with a plethora of bright, long meteors leaving durable trains. Meteors rained down for over an hour, it was amazing to watch a stretch of horizon as it was showered with so many "shooting stars" slipping out of sight. I enjoyed the many simultaneous appearances that gave the impression of fireworks bursts. After 3:15 we were treated to some very bright fireballs. One fireball which we coined the "Donut", left a train visible for over ten minutes. It will be left to such "serious" meteor observers as Jim Failes and Ron Scherer, to give the actual count and rate, but it would seem that "near 2000 ZHR" is the first impression. Certainly getting over 1000 per hour using my guess-and-by-gosh method was easy. A memorable night, especially for the meteor show,... but adding to that was the comradeship and excitement of sharing the experience with such an enthusiastic group. Thanks especially to Jim Tisdale for getting the parking lot gate open and parking lot lights off, and also to "weatherman" Alan Whitman for providing such clear skies. Kindest Regards Guy Mackie President OC RASC

Paul Ellard, Kelowna, BC Anne and I were invited out to supper last night and we got home around 1230 AM.  I quickly changed into something warmer and headed out to the driveway.  I counted what I saw in my little patch of sky between 1250 and 0150 and I got 122 with about 10 suspected out of the corner of my eye.  Some nice bright ones especially at the zenith!  I stayed out until 0230 and did notice an increase to maybe about 180 per hour (in my little patch).  Cold and the need for sleep took over and so I called it quits (unfortunately before the "donut").  Did notice one train that lasted for about half a minute to the east at about 30 degrees headed south to north around 0130 AM. Paul

Allen Royston,  Kelowna, BC I live near Mckenzie road on the east bank of the light pollution lake called Kelowna. Are view to the west is a wash out but from the zenith on east its pretty good. I started to poke my nose outside from around 10pm on Saturday, Set up my 10" and some lawn chairs on our patio. The sky was remarkably clear for November ( great luck ). At about 11pm the rest of the family went to bed and I made coffee and went out to look at Orion, Jupiter and Saturn. The Leonids were sparse but bright, and I watched until 12:30 and then I did a count. With my limited sky (1/4 total sky) and light pollution it was about 60 /hr. The count increased steadily from there until 1:30 when I decided the show was to good to let the family sleep through and I woke them up. By 1:50 we were all out sitting on law chairs watching the show, WOW I forced my self to do another count. In around 5 minutes 28 bright Leonids. It worked out to just under 300 /hr. The four of us watched until 2:20 and then we zipped into the hot tub to watch from there. The rest family went back to bed soon after but I stayed out until 3:30 watching. I noticed that the meteors came in waves and seemed to clump in the same zone. 4 in Taurus, 3 in Canis Major, 3 over the west in the light pollution. I am not a seasoned Meteor observer and would ask the journeymen of the club if clumping in a shower is normal? Great Show! Allen Royston

Richard Christie, Kelowna , BC I went out about 2 am until after the peak after 3 pm. My count for two 10 minute periods indicated that the peak was indeed about one hour later than predicted at 3 am or so. I got in excess of 1000 per hour at the peak around 3 am and I know I kept missing some since they were all over the sky and I had some light pollution problems nearby which made some of the very faint ones easy to miss as well. Yours sincerely, Richard Christie.

Alan Whitman, Penticton, BC Leonids: A Second Sickle My most striking memory from the 2001 Leonid storm was the persistent train formed by a magnitude -6 fireball. The train was behind birch trees and I ignored it for awhile as I was doing a casual count. After finishing that count (50 Leonids in 6 minutes and 37 seconds between 3:03.5 and 3:10 PST) the train was still obvious to the unaided eye so I went in to get my binoculars. Through my 7x50s the train, now distorted by windshear, had assumed the shape of a Sickle with the bright Beehive Cluster centred in the cavity! How appropriate, that the Sickle-shaped train should mimic the nearby Sickle of Leo, the radiant of the meteor shower. This train was still faintly visible to the unaided eye after 15 minutes. I couldn't time its complete duration because I went back to my recliner and the fading train was behind a birch from that location. During this period a second fireball left a train visible for three minutes. There were numerous fireballs of magnitude -4 to one -7, but only these two left persistent trains visible from our site. As others have said, the 2001 Leonid storm was one of those rare events which you know will form a lifetime memory. It wasn't quite up to a total solar eclipse, but for me it was every bit as memorable as the 1994 annular eclipse/tornado chasing in Oklahoma. The above-mentioned count was at about the peak of the shower which occurred an hour later than forecast by some experts. My wife Gretchen and I didn't see quite the numbers widely reported by others as trees and our house obscure parts of our sky and because our backyard has no horizons -- ridges rise all around. I had always understood that meteors should be observed in the zenith, but realize now that because most of this year's Leonids were between magnitude 1 and -2 they were visible for great distances. So those of you with unobstructed horizons were seeing distant Leonids that were below the encircling mountain ridges for us. I now realize that this is analagous to the cloud illusion: on a summer's day with small cumulus clouds distributed evenly over a prairie sky each observer will see far more clouds around the horizon than in his zenith. Transparency Sunday morning was excellent: the galaxy M33 and the magnitude 6.4 star beside Polaris were visible to the unaided eye. Here in Penticton, BC we had the most transparent night so far this month for the Leonids, just as we did in 1999 -- exceptional good luck! November is normally a very cloudy month here and yet, by great good fortune, we have been able to watch the Leonids for four straight years. [Although in 2000 Jim Failes and I drove 520 kms to find a sizable hole through which we saw six meteors]. Because the Leonids were so bright this year (faint meteors were far outnumbered by those between magnitude 1 and magnitude -6) I have renewed hope for 2002. Next year's full moon will not be able to hide the Leonids if they are as brilliant as this year's were. I'll be on a ridge with low horizons next year for sure! Tony and Andrew, I hope that the storm forecast for Australia this year came through as well as North America's did. Best, Alan Whitman Penticton, BC

Jim Failes, Kelowna, BC My first Leonid count of the night began at 20 minutes to midnight.  With my view centred about 90 degrees from the radiant in the southern sky, I counted 11 Leonids in the first 16 minutes.  Then, after a lull of 4 minutes during which I saw no meteors at all, I counted 19 Leonids in 10 minutes. The opening act was impressive.  Already, with the radiant very low – and Lion’s tail still below the horizon – the Leonids were providing a show equivalent to the best of the year’s "normal" showers. After an hour-long break to warm up, relax, and take a few photos, I resumed counting, with my view centred on northern Orion.  Again, my timed periods were irregular in length, but the steady rise in Leonid rates was clear. >From 1:15 to 1:21 a.m., I counted 15 Leonids.  The following 9 minutes yielded 27 more.  From 1:30 to 1:40, I counted 46 Leonids, a rate which converts to an hourly 276, easily the highest sustained rate of meteors I’d ever seen.  But this was just the beginning. By 2:20 a.m., the Leonids had begun to fall so quickly, I began to do counts without pausing my tape recorder.  I simply let the tape roll.  Listening to this section of tape gives a real feel for the festive mood in our group. In addition to "oohs" and "ahhs" there is almost continuous lively chatter and frequent bouts of helpless giggling.  This is no ordinary meteor shower tape, with fatigued murmurs and plenty of time for details; it’s a play-by-play where magnitudes and constellations are ignored in an increasingly difficult attempt to keep up with the astounding rate.  In 9 and a half minutes, the tape records 106 Leonids, equivalent to an hourly rate of 669.  In the 60 seconds between 2:27 to 2:28 a.m., I counted 18 Leonids, a burst with an hourly rate in excess of 1,000 – the "storm" threshold.  But that threshold is set for Zenithal rates.  At our Big White location, the radiant was only 40 degrees up – less than half the way to the zenith. That was the last of my Single-Observer counts.  The predicted time of maximum was passed, and I was quite prepared to forget about the formal counting and just enjoy the show.  Curiosity, however, soon got the better of me.  There was no detectable wane in the rates.  What might an all-sky count yield?  Ron Scherer, Jim Tisdale and I chose thirds of the sky and stood back-to-back-to-back for a three-observer survey. Although I foolishly didn’t record the time, it’s clear from the tape that it occurred somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m.  The counting was fast and furious:  zero to 100 in 4 minutes and 40 seconds.  This reduces to an average rate better than one Leonid every three seconds, with an overall 3-Observer hourly rate of 1,286. At 3:00 a.m., Ron S. and I followed up with a two-observer count, attempting o lessen some confusion that resulted from overlapping sky areas for three observers.  This time it took just over 5 minutes to get to 100 Leonids – a 2-Observer rate almost as high as that we’d just attained with 3. Apparently the number of meteors was still increasing. A few minutes later, Ron and I decided it was worth another go.  At 3:10, back-to-back, each centred about 90 degrees from the radiant, we began what turned out to be the top count of the night.  We reached 100 so quickly (under four minutes) that we decided to keep on going.  The count finally ended at 166, when a brilliant fireball left a glowing train in Canis Minor, sending me scrambling for my camera.  We’d reached that total in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, yielding a 2-Observer Hourly Rate of 1,500.  Fantastic! In the ensuing half hour, we began to get the impression that the peak had passed, and the storm was subsiding.  Beginning at 3:40 a.m., Ron and I did a final 2-Observer count, which still tallied an impressive 100 Leonids in just over 7 minutes, equivalent to nearly 850 in an hour.

Mikkel Steine, Norway As many of you have posted your report from the Leonids, I thought you might like to hear what I saw from Norway. We did not have the radiant above horizon for any of the storm peaks this year, but we did see lots of nice meteors when it did rise later in the evening (about 21:30 local time). The brightest meteor was about mag -5, while most were at about mag 0-2. Sunday night was the most spectacular, although we did see many nice meteors before sunrise sunday morning. My girlfriend and I had found our way up into the mountains in central Norway for the weekend, and though there were some clouds drifting all night and the wind was tossing the trees around, we had great conditions. With mag 6.5 skies and great transparency we had some great observing sessions that weekend. I almost completed my project of drawing the 6 planetaries in Lyra. Still Abell 46 eluded me and my 10" Orion Dobson. Just when Abell 46 found it's way behind a tall tree and I looked up from the ocular I saw a faint and slow but very long Leonid whizzing across the sky at about zenith. It was time to find the camera, a mattress, sleeping bag and a place to lie in the snow. So there we were, feeling comfortable and warm in the cold Norwegian winter night about 900 meters above sea level. It was beautiful to watch the Milky Way and all it's naked eye Deep-Sky objects, including IC 1396 in Cepheus. Then suddenly from the east a -3 earth grazer Leonid crossed the sky from horizon to horizon while we screamed! It was a fantastic sight. Glad we were all alone in the woods :) The meteor had a beautiful green tail and it moved slowly. When two more -1 earth grazer crossed the sky in almost the same place we knew we were in for a show, even though we weren't expecting 2000+ an hour. Like arrows from the hunter Orion the meteors shot out of his bow one after the other, with some minutes between them. We had our cameras ready, and could press the release at the moment we saw one and hope to get it in the frame. They were that slow. During the next three hours we saw about 100 meteors, mostly brighter than mag 2. Although we knew that the amount would rise later in the night, we were getting cold and tired. I've never imaged meteors intentionally before, but I did get some of them on film, visit my website (http://messier45.com) to view them. Best regards, Mikkel Steine