The Great Leonid Meteor Shower of 2001

During the morning hours of November 18, 2001, the Leonid Meteor shower took on a characteristic not seen for 35 years. In the space of one hour, from about 3:00 to 4:00 A.M., mountain standard time, the zenithal hourly count was fabulously high. While not known accurately at this time, it is estimated that we saw approximately 1800 meteors during this time.

My son Jared and I journeyed to a place where we were quite certain of clear skies and were rewarded with near perfect conditions. We set up our equipment in a field about 5 1/2 miles north of Glendale, Nevada, starting at about 2:15 that morning. By 2:45, we were ready and the meteors were already coming thick and fast. Over the next hour and a half, I exposed two 36 exposure rolls of Kodak Supra 800 professional film in two Nikon F camera bodies. One of the cameras was mounted on my Celestron C-5 for accurately tracking and exposed through a Nikkor 28mm lens operating at F:2. Exposures were timed at about 30 seconds each. The other camera was mounted on a tripod and exposed through a Sigma zoom lens, operating at 35mm F:2.8. These exposures were approximately 90 seconds each, although during the excitement, some became less and some became more.

 

 

 

 

The results shown here are a small part of the total, in which I discovered at least 35 separate meteor tracks on the 72 exposures. At least one frame contains four separate tracks, and several others have three and two. While most of the meteors seen  were of ordinary brightness, one fireball was seen, at the very end of our viewing. Unfortunately, it was traveling almost directly toward us and thus left a very short track on the final frame exposed.

Number 21     Number 21 cropped                            Number 26       Number 28       Number 29       Composite      Unguided Leonid Meteors      Unguided Composite      Radiant       Fireball