Lenonids from Santa Cruz

by Jon Ruyle

Last night, a couple of friends came over to my house in Santa Cruz around 10pm to watch the Leonids. We sat around watching Star Trek and Cosmos until about 1, at which time we went out to join my 12 1/2" Starmaster dob and 4" Takahashi refractor which were already cooling outside.

We got some mediocre views of Saturn and Jupiter, and a not so bad view of the Orion nebula (which had been the subject of some discussion on one of our earlier tv programs), despite the high thin clouds and the full moon.

Early, it was pretty slow. Around 2, it felt like a good Perseid shower under a moonless sky. We did a few 1 minute counts before 2:29 and got from 1 to 4 in a minute. We saw several that were much brighter than Jupiter.

Then things really go going. From 2:29 to 2:41 we counted 57 meteors (for a ZHR of 285). I stopped counting to look at the trail of an extremely bright one through binoculars, and it was easily visible for over a minute. Things picked up even more near 2:45, when we one more 1 minute count and saw 11. The shower continued in force until at least 3:15. At 3:30, we noticed that it had dropped of significantly so we called it a night.

This was easily the second best shower I've seen. Without the full moon, I believe it would have been even more easily the second best shower I've seen. Spectacular. I regret that I'll probably never see its equal again.