meteor drip
I arose at 2:45am to witness what was hailed as the “Last Great Meteor Show for Decades”. We began stargazing at about 3:45am but the meteors were few and far between. It wasn’t a failure, as we managed to see several meteors and Jason was lucky enough to see one with a long tail as we were heading back to the car. All of the ones I saw had short tails and looked similar to this one.
The full moon was hidden by trees so it didn’t affect the visibility, but clouds kept us from seeing anything near the forecast of 250 every 15 minutes for Salt Lake City. My guess is that we saw about 5 an hour. In spite of the less then stellar display, I enjoyed spending time with friends which made for a memorable morning.
I just found space.com/leonids which has lots of photos from last year as well as more news about the shower from other folks who saw a lot more meteors than we did.
They also have a time-elapsed video of the 2001 shower.
Buddy, I don’t know where you were, but a bunch of us left at 3:15 down south to Mona/Santaquin and had a nifty show. It wasn’t 250/hr by any means, but probably around 25-50/hr and there were a few magnificent ones. I would’ve seen more, but the full moon put out a lot of light. Plus it was freezing. My seat was pretty chilly and I now know the literal definition of “butt cold.”
We were at the Donut Falls trail, with all the clouds.
Doc Searls had a similar experience.
Jason posted some pictures of the event.