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Leonid meteors peaking tonight, 17-18th Nov


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The Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight. It’s not a shower I’ve deliberately/knowingly observed before. From what I’ve read, they may be a little infrequent, yet bright and colourful. Anyone else planning to take a look? Any experiences of observing them in previous years? In 1966, they "fell like rain" according to one article I saw! ☂️

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My last experience was back in 1998, It was more like War of the Worlds?
In addition to the 'normal' meteors' that can be seen most nights, back in '98 I recall several fireballs streaking across the sky, it was truly memorable.

Not sure I'll see the same tonight 17/18th.  

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21 minutes ago, Pete Presland said:

Looks like its going to be clear tonight so it would rude not have a look. Going to get early I think and do a bit comet hunting as well perhaps.

Good shout. I was thinking a few doubles with the moon out. Hadn’t thought of comets - thanks for the idea. ?

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Definitely will be out watching. Probably after midnight for me. I'll set the canon camera up and let it work all night. It ran last night from 8pm till just before 3am. I'll check it out now I got in from work.

Last year was really a let down, but the Gemini in Dec repay ed for the Leonids.

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Just saw three nice ones streak across the sky within the last half hour.  (All above Taurus) Standard 'teardrop' shape.  The problem is, it's that damp cold which seems to work it's way through however many layers you have on.  ?

Not sure if I will last untill 1.30.

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Got out twice. From 10:00pm till about 1:30 am. Fell asleep a couple times in my comfortable gravity chair. Went in and hit the couch for a couple hours to be able to get comfortable.

I saw several that were just average meteors. Still enjoy seeing any meteor. 

Came back out at 4:00am for another hour. Saw an incredible meteor to the South, heading towards Orion.

This meteor/fireball was magnitude -3 with a very long trail. Even after it had disappeared, the luminous trail lingered for a short while. Hope I got it with the camera.

This was from 2:30 am the morning of the 17th. 1 success out of 2700 photos.

_MG_3792-Meteor.JPG

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Well I was out from 0100 - 0400 and would probably have seem more meteors on a quiet night, considering what I've experienced in the past?

It all kicked off at 0200, two fast meteors, criss-crossed the sky, but not from Leo, much nearer to Ursa  Major, so that's where I set up the camera and after visually seeing 9 meteors (9th the brightest) and none were captured on the camera itself!

I did manage to capture  the light from an Icelandic Air 757 at about 0350 through Ursa Major,  and then I thought I saw  ( the bushes and trees can play tricks with your vision?) Arcturus on the move!  which was  more  likely an iridium flare, but I only saw the one, very bright light, Arcturus was still there, dancing through the bushes as it slowly rose.

The biggest issue I had with the camera was to get it focused properly, nothing shows on the live view screen, and did not have my glasses with me.
 I used  a manual setup, but the 35mm  lens has a weird  ring that just seems to go round when trying to set infinity, but rotate slowly and there is the slightest detent, but the images were still not correctly in focus? However I  later switched to my 55-18 but kept the same 10sec image duration, with 20 sec intervals, and over 600 shots later, I only  have two for display, and still not one meteor. I might have one more check sometime, just incase I missed one.

I chose these two images to show that its quite apparent that sensors can see  much more than the human eye!
I can't see the Orion Nebula as well as its depicted here looking South over my city, still shrouded with some sodium light glow. In this image the nebulae appears to be brighter than Orion's belt, which I use to locate the nebula visually, and the second image looking Northerly at Ursa Major ( my target for the night) is not only darker, but captured the light of an airliner.  I also noticed 7 stars in Ursa Minor three clear as day, four with averted vision ( no glasses ) which has shown that my site is darker now, due to the latest LED's street lamps.

Observing could be the best its been from this site this season, if the weather abates and gives me the opportunity. 

DSC_0065.JPG

DSC_0084.JPG

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2 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

Came back out at 4:00am for another hour. Saw an incredible meteor to the South, heading towards Orion.

Quite possibly I saw the same?

I was just walking back to the house, under the LED's and it would have been the brightest one of the night for me( typical since I'd just packed up ) and from  where I was  standing, it was heading away from me somewhere between 270° and 320°  with Orion on my left.

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Last night I saw three meteors. One was feeble, one big and one possibly qualified as a fireball, flaring, darkening then flaring back up and ending in a bright explosion.Rob saw the big one and another really good one that I missed.

They all headed west-east except my fireball which was going almost north.

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I have to really take extra care focusing my canon, mostly because of the small screen and my eyes getting older. What appears good one the camera is slightly out of focus in the computer.

One of my first meteors was there with Ursa Major, a bold bright fireball, but was sadly out of focus a bit. Was still good enough AMMETER put it in their fireball logs.

I hope soon to go directly to my laptop and solve that problem. One step at a time. Just changed from batteries to ac power with the camera. 3000 5 sec exp 5 sec delay a night now.

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51 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

I have to really take extra care focusing my canon, mostly because of the small screen and my eyes getting older. What appears good one the camera is slightly out of focus in the computer.

I use a Bahtinov mask, it's a lot better than my eyes!

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It was a  clear cold night here in Worcestershire. Thus I braved the elements for nearly two hours, between 12.30 and 2.15 am GMT, to watch out for Leonids, from a dark sky location with a clear horizon in most directions. Despite this, I only recorded 12 meteors, and only 4 of these were Leonids, all bright and very swift. Did anyone see anything approaching the maximum rate after this time?. However, I find this sparsity of meteors to be fairly typical of the Leonids in most years, apart of course, from the GREAT STORMS recorded in recent history. Indeed, I have been observing this shower when possible since I was a school boy. The best display was in 1966 when I caught merely the beginning of the maxima in the pre-dawn sky here in the UK, the States hit the jackpot just a few hours later.  Although, as mentioned earlier, the "fireball finale" in 1998, was both spectacular and also not entirely expected.  Currently, the december Geminids, is by far the best annual display, so let us hope for equally clear skies in a few weeks time.     Good  luck      CHRIS.  

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