From: Robert Lunsford, San Diego, CA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 10:53:43 -0800

High clouds rolled into San Diego county Monday evening so it was
necessary to travel eastward to obtain clear skies for the Leonid
shower. George Zay and I drove eastward nearly to the Arizona border.
The skies were still partly cloudy but it was better than home so we
gave it a go. We started counting at 11:00 pm local time (even before)
Leo was above the horizon. We were rewarded 5 minutes later with two
beautiful Leonids that shot overhead and disappeared low in the
western sky. These long beautiful meteors continued for the next half
hour at a rate of one every two minutes. These meteors were bright
orange, often with a dim halo, and their tails were bluish. As Leo
rose in the east this meteors became shorter and shorter. Between
midnight and 1am rates increased to an average of one per minute. The
next two hours produced 91 and 104 Leonids. High clouds began drifting
in after 3am and we were forced to quit at 4am. The last hour produced
88 Leonids under thin cirrus.

Although this mornings display lacked the brilliant fireballs seen the
previous morning there were still many bright meteors to be enjoyed.
There were often bursts of 2 and 3 meteors all going in different
directions just seconds apart. This show is what I had wildly hope for
but never really expected to see. Lets hope the display continues to
improve for our friends to the west!

November 17, 1998

0700-0800 UT 1.00  6.06  33 LEO   1 NTA    6 SPO   40 TOTAL
0800-0900 UT 1.00  6.16  62 LEO   2 NTA    9 SPO   73 TOTAL
0900-1000 UT 1.00  6.12  91 LEO   3 NTA    7 SPO  101 TOTAL
1000-1100 UT 1.00  5.85 104 LEO   1 NTA   13 SPO  118  TOTAL
1100-1200 UT 1.00  5.22  88 LEO   0 NTA    2 SPO   90 TOTAL

TOTALS:      5.00  5.88 378 LEO   7 NTA   37 SPO  422 TOTAL

The first column is the period watched in Universal Time (PDT + 8
hours). The second column is the percent of an hour actually spent
watching the sky during this period. Time is lost for breaks,
plotting, and data entry. The third column is the average limiting
magnitude during each period with a minimum of 4 estimates. The last
several columns list the activity seen during each period.

I was facing southeast at an altitude of 70 degrees. No breaks were
taken during this session. LEO = Leonid, NTA = Northern Taurid, and
SPO = SPORADIC (random activity).

Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity:   60 F (16 C)  25%
Ending Temperature/Relative Humidity:      52 F (11 C)  27%

MAGNITUDES:

LEO  -7  (1)  -6  (1)  -5  (6)  -4  (11)  -3  (14)  -2  (35)  -1 (40)
0  (91)  +1  (61)  +2  (61)  +3  (42)  +4  (13)  +5  (2)
AVERAGE  +0.35

NTA   -3  (1)  0  (1)  +1  (1)  +2  (3)  +3  (1)  AVERAGE  +1.00

SPO   0  (1) +1  (2) +2 (10)  +3 (14)  +4  (9)  +5 (1) AVERAGE +2.84