After Tony Donnangelo and I decided that it was probably not worthwhile driving anywhere else in Pennsylvania or New Jersey I eventually ended up watching the peak of the Leonids from the ASH Naylor Observatory near Lewisberry. During the 04:00 UT peak I watched for short time from a nearby park but could see only two stars in east and the moon due to cloud cover. There was a great lunar halo but I would have been much happier not to see one on this
particular occasion. I fell asleep on my futon watching Letterman and was ready to crawl into bed when I looked out a window and saw that conditions had improved somewhat. I must admit that I debated with myself for some time whether I should just call it quits and go to bed or travel the 18 miles to the observatory.
When I arrived there was one ASH member there who had gone north to a dark site but returned when the weather didn't pan out. We were joined by two more members and a non-member by the time the Leonid peak was predicted. I prepared the French Dome and trained the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain on Jupiter (162 and 259x) and then Saturn (259x). The seeing was better than I expected with the high cirrus acting as a filter.
At 10:00 UT I laid back in my lounge chair, covered myself with a sleeping bag, and began counting. We were fortunate enough to have a hole surrounding the radiant more or less until dawn but conditions were far from ideal. My tally was 48 Leonids. These included several head-on meteors, three that left fairly good trains (one formed a neat arc momentarily), and one that was perhaps -3 magnitude. So while what we saw was far from a storm it was certainly worth the drive and braving the lower than 30 degree
Fahrenheit temperatures.
Other highlights included an ISS pass that began at 10:10 UT, a moondog, and a very thin crescent Venus at 162x before closing up the dome. After that I used a pinhole lens in an unsuccessful attempt to see Venus as a crescent with my naked eye.
Dave Mitsky
Harrisburg, PA
particular occasion. I fell asleep on my futon watching Letterman and was ready to crawl into bed when I looked out a window and saw that conditions had improved somewhat. I must admit that I debated with myself for some time whether I should just call it quits and go to bed or travel the 18 miles to the observatory.
When I arrived there was one ASH member there who had gone north to a dark site but returned when the weather didn't pan out. We were joined by two more members and a non-member by the time the Leonid peak was predicted. I prepared the French Dome and trained the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain on Jupiter (162 and 259x) and then Saturn (259x). The seeing was better than I expected with the high cirrus acting as a filter.
At 10:00 UT I laid back in my lounge chair, covered myself with a sleeping bag, and began counting. We were fortunate enough to have a hole surrounding the radiant more or less until dawn but conditions were far from ideal. My tally was 48 Leonids. These included several head-on meteors, three that left fairly good trains (one formed a neat arc momentarily), and one that was perhaps -3 magnitude. So while what we saw was far from a storm it was certainly worth the drive and braving the lower than 30 degree
Fahrenheit temperatures.
Other highlights included an ISS pass that began at 10:10 UT, a moondog, and a very thin crescent Venus at 162x before closing up the dome. After that I used a pinhole lens in an unsuccessful attempt to see Venus as a crescent with my naked eye.
Dave Mitsky
Harrisburg, PA
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
