Leonids from Santa Cruz Mountains

by Lynne Jolitz


The seeing was good at 2:30am on top of Summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains at 2200 feet. Very windy. Even with the moon, in 30 minutes saw many bright with trails. One had a trail that persisted in the atmosphere for close to two minutes.

While last year had more faint ones seeable, this year had more interesting colors. Green, blue, even a flash of bright purple and pink - along with yellows. More like fireworks.

So, even though many of the faint ones were washed out somewhat, the brilliant colorful ones made up for the lack. A nice show.