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To: Rambi who wrote (4011)	11/18/2001 7:37:27 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 51710

See you there! You betcha. K

To: Rambi who wrote (4011)	11/18/2001 8:48:18 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 51710

It was really unfortunate that so many people couldn't stick with it - this is not like the mid-night matinee. Meteor showers don't know or care what time WE think they will be coming in. The truth is, where I lived, the real show started about 15 minutes before they said, and then lasted as several "waves" between 0200 and 0700 local time. I'd never before seen meteors streak across a bright dawn morning. The clouds were well past "orange" and into "yellow" and I was still seeing a few flamers every few minutes. The main thing is comfort. You've got to be comfortable. I was up till sunrise. Then I slept till 2pm. My bioclock is all out of whack now. There were some truly phenomenal ones going off. We commanded a dark hilltop, just 200 yards from the road and it was night and day for the visibility. For a while (well past the "official" peak forecasts), the skies 'rained' meteors. I saw some exploding fireballs, streaks and for only the second time in my life, a skimmer. You know how the F-18s look at the aerobatic shows when they turn on their smoke? Well imagine that at night with a bright red dot being the plane. Around this was a halo of compressed oxygen ions, giving a blue bullet shaped bow wave. Then behind was a luminous white trail that would hang there for 5 to 10 seconds. This skimmer was seen at the 11 o'clock position as we faced east. It went from 11 to 8 o'clock position over the course of several seconds. The only other time I'd seen something like that was when I saw an asteroid (there was another meteorite viewer that had seen it too back in 1960's. Anyway, that one was truly memorable!! It was brighter than Venus and was shedding debris behind it that fell away in "curtains". The smaller particles didn't have enough momentum to push through the atmosphere so they'd slow down (still bright) and kind of "sag" off behind the main dot. I'll tell you that was the single-most visually impressive memory of stellar events I've ever had. And I've had quite a few. I can hardly wait for my next meteor shower, but it will be a long time before we get another one like this one (probably from a known storm). It is always possible we could cross through the old tail of a non-periodic comment, but I'm afraid that I'll have to wait for 2099 with you. Sniff. My digitized consciousness will be renting the best low light sensors for that one. I'll have my reservations for best in class hardware in place by 2090, at the latest.