FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: Leonids: Vekol Report

["Randy Peterson" <rgpeterson@xxxxxxx>]

Well, since I didn't see last year's Leonids, I appreciated seeing the 1002
that we did see!  Received a thank you email from Jim Spear, the guy from
Chicago who brought his family, for our hospitality.
I need to figure out a place to take my two rolls of slide film to be
developed.  Ideally, they would not only develop the slides, but be able to
digitize the images and put them on the internet or a cd as well.
Randy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Polakis" <polakis@xxxxxxx>
To: <"Reply-To:az-observing"@freelists.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 9:08 AM
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Leonids: Vekol Report


> I'm sure there will be more official counts coming in, but I think the 30
> or so vehicles worth of people would have considered the trip worthwhile.
> At its peak, the rate was on the order of 1 every 5 seconds, which would
> put it in the same class with the 2001 shower after factoring in
> moonlight.  The main difference was that this peak was much more
> pronounced, lasting no more than an hour before settling down to a very
> low level.  The show was a yawner before 3:00, when activity shot upward.
>
> Most of the meteors left trains, but they were quite short-lived, again
> being affected by the brightness of the sky.  In a few of the brighter
> Leonids, the color transition from green to orange that showed up in
> everybody's photographs last year was apparent.  I didn't know to look for
> that in 2001.
>
> A few miscellaneous notes:  The temperature at Vekol when I left at 4:10
> was a chilly 38F, despite the site's low elevation of only 1800 feet.  On
> the drive back to Phoenix, I saw zero meteors from my car.  Here at the
> salt mine, I've heard nothing but complaints about the lack of a shower
> when people got up before work to look at 5 a.m.  In the brush with
> greatness department, I think Rob McNaught, co-author of the
> McNaught-Asher model of the Leonids often quoted in S&T, was somewhere in
> Vekol Valley with Bernie Sanden.  The number of cars in the parking lot at
> Ak-Chin Casino at 4:30 was amazing.  Do people drive out to BFE to gamble
> round the clock?
>
> Tom
>
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