Well we set the alarm for 4:00 am and hauled some blankets up to the roof to watch the show. We did see a bunch of shooting stars including at least two very large burning green ones - quite amazing. The strong ones all tended toward that green color. I'd estimate the rate at about two a minute for what we could see from our rather bright downtown Manhattan perch. Not bad. It must really be something to see this thing at full speed. I heard reports of over 1,000 an hour in some spots.
I got up at 4:45, threw on a coat, and went up on the Pulaski Bridge. Sounds like you had a better view. I couldn’t lie down, and there are street lights on the bridge, but I could see comet fragments every minute or two, with flurries at odd intervals. Mostly quick flashes, but a few glowing streaks. Certainly the best display I’ve ever seen. Especially beautiful as Venus rose, followed by the twilight of dawn, which put an end to the show.
I hoofed it over to the Hudson river, arriving at 4:35 am. The view was pretty good, the sky is quite a bit darker over the river. Orion appeared in the narrow path of blackness which is bordered by the light spill of Manhattan, Jersey City, Hoboken, Newark etc.
Some of the meteorites left trails which hung in the air for at least 10 seconds. A particularly bright one seemed to explode half way through it's display. I thought I saw some bits break off and sparkle.
I kept thinking about what it would have been like to be in a rural or wilderness area, away from such high levels of light pollution
I saw the Leonids when I was a kid in Texas. My parents got us up in the wee hours and we lay on sleeping bags in the back yard. The air in Midland is dry and clear, and the town was too small to have light pollution. So we're talkin' Jump to Hyperspace here.
My mom and dad drove from Portland out to Hood River for a great view. It was cold and windy and extremely clear my mom says. We got into describing specific meteorites and it seems that we saw some of the same ones. (I think this is possible......?) The peak hour out there was 2:00 am. A man they were standing next to asked them if they saw the big one which seemed to explode and send out sparkling material mid-way through it's burn. They missed that one (though I think I saw it, see prev. comment) They were looking in another direction. Mom described seeing two bright ones simultaneous and paralell with eachother high in the Western horizon which matches a sighting of mine.
Hmm, maybe someone more science-minded can figure it out, but I doubt you were seeing the same meteors. There were so many that the same patterns could easily "repeat". I don't think they were far enough away for the angle to be big enough for the same ones to be visible on both sides of the continent. The sun is much further away, and it shows a significant positional change over the same distance; wouldn't the meteors be "beyond the horizon"?
Right, I wonder about this too, how far up in the atmosphere is it that they are burning? They must be "below the horizon" when the vantage point is three thousand miles away.
Once on the beach in Tulum, the most Disneyesque Mayan ruin, I stepped out of the tent to pee &
watched the brightest, greenest, widest shooting star I'd ever seen leave a big white skidmark
that seemed to hang for a full minute, & hung in my mind for good. A week later reading the
Christian Science Monitor I came across a story of a meteorite crashing into a field north of
Mexico City & starting a brush fire. Sightings were reported "as far away as the Yucatan." I was a good 500 miles east of these sightings making the radius of possible sighting at least 1500 miles.
Depending on azimuth & trajectory & such I am almost certain you & your mom could be seeing the same objects though tyhey would of course appear at differant places in your local sky.
Interesting. Well, our notes did seem to coincide.
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- jim 11-18-2001 3:39 pm
I got up at 4:45, threw on a coat, and went up on the Pulaski Bridge. Sounds like you had a better view. I couldn’t lie down, and there are street lights on the bridge, but I could see comet fragments every minute or two, with flurries at odd intervals. Mostly quick flashes, but a few glowing streaks. Certainly the best display I’ve ever seen. Especially beautiful as Venus rose, followed by the twilight of dawn, which put an end to the show.
- alex 11-18-2001 11:38 pm
I hoofed it over to the Hudson river, arriving at 4:35 am. The view was pretty good, the sky is quite a bit darker over the river. Orion appeared in the narrow path of blackness which is bordered by the light spill of Manhattan, Jersey City, Hoboken, Newark etc.
Some of the meteorites left trails which hung in the air for at least 10 seconds. A particularly bright one seemed to explode half way through it's display. I thought I saw some bits break off and sparkle.
I kept thinking about what it would have been like to be in a rural or wilderness area, away from such high levels of light pollution
- steve 11-19-2001 6:48 pm
I saw the Leonids when I was a kid in Texas. My parents got us up in the wee hours and we lay on sleeping bags in the back yard. The air in Midland is dry and clear, and the town was too small to have light pollution. So we're talkin' Jump to Hyperspace here.
- tom moody 11-19-2001 8:23 pm
My mom and dad drove from Portland out to Hood River for a great view. It was cold and windy and extremely clear my mom says. We got into describing specific meteorites and it seems that we saw some of the same ones. (I think this is possible......?) The peak hour out there was 2:00 am. A man they were standing next to asked them if they saw the big one which seemed to explode and send out sparkling material mid-way through it's burn. They missed that one (though I think I saw it, see prev. comment) They were looking in another direction. Mom described seeing two bright ones simultaneous and paralell with eachother high in the Western horizon which matches a sighting of mine.
- steve 11-19-2001 9:53 pm
Hmm, maybe someone more science-minded can figure it out, but I doubt you were seeing the same meteors. There were so many that the same patterns could easily "repeat". I don't think they were far enough away for the angle to be big enough for the same ones to be visible on both sides of the continent. The sun is much further away, and it shows a significant positional change over the same distance; wouldn't the meteors be "beyond the horizon"?
- alex 11-19-2001 10:25 pm
Right, I wonder about this too, how far up in the atmosphere is it that they are burning? They must be "below the horizon" when the vantage point is three thousand miles away.
- steve 11-20-2001 3:39 am
Once on the beach in Tulum, the most Disneyesque Mayan ruin, I stepped out of the tent to pee &
watched the brightest, greenest, widest shooting star I'd ever seen leave a big white skidmark
that seemed to hang for a full minute, & hung in my mind for good. A week later reading the
Christian Science Monitor I came across a story of a meteorite crashing into a field north of
Mexico City & starting a brush fire. Sightings were reported "as far away as the Yucatan." I was a good 500 miles east of these sightings making the radius of possible sighting at least 1500 miles.
Depending on azimuth & trajectory & such I am almost certain you & your mom could be seeing the same objects though tyhey would of course appear at differant places in your local sky.
- frank 12-25-2001 11:56 pm
Interesting. Well, our notes did seem to coincide.
- steve 12-26-2001 8:22 am