Leonids!
19 November 2002 02:00

I spent a little bit outside last night looking for Leonids. Temperatures were probably sub-freezing, so I wasn't out for too long. I went out about 2:15 am, MST, and saw probably around one per minute, if that. Most of these were green, leaving fairly short trails. One left a very bright, thick, medium size trail that looked like green powder. I went out again at around 3:30 am, and this time the rate had picked up substantially. I was probably seeing several per minute (I was too cold and tired to be very scientific about it). Most left rather short trails, mostly green (I wonder what chemical makeup leaves a green trail?), but a few left long thin tracks across the sky. It was interesting to see how often the trails would come in pairs--you would see one, followed almost immediately by one following a similar direction vector. My guess is these come from large meteors which have broken up on their entry through the atmosphere.