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Originally Posted by Dave47tuc
I also went to Woomera in 2001 a lot more meteors, I lost count but there was a meteor in the sky no matter where I looked at any one time.
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3 out of 4 of us located at a dark country location north of Crystal Brook on a hill (located in the mid north of SA - about two or so hours drive from adelaide) counted *literally* nearly 2000 meteors in three hours of observing/counting, many of which were very bright and spectacular (vast majority around mag +2<0>-2 with many fireballs and 'squadrons' of fireballs even) leonids - a high percentage of them left long lasting trains (longest lasting was about 20min - thats a story in itself).
While dark, there were a few light domes on the horizons, jamestown ect. - have seen darker spots. And we had a highway with the odd road train to contend with nearby also.
The best hour was around 4am to 5am were we again *literally* counted 1102 leonids.
(while technically a group count, if you had been lying on the ground with 360 d peripherary you would of at least most of all of them - most were so long lasting and tracked so much of the sky - although we all faced slightly different but slightly converging fields, one would exclaim something giving the others time to turn and catch at least some of their paths and glowing trains. so we technically speaking individually saw most of the count.
One standout highlight, out of dozens, would be the way some of the earth grazing squadrons converged on the western horizon, specially towards dawn. I have never seen that so well illustrated any other time.
I have probably mentioned my highlights ad nuseaum in here - but i will add one more - I may of mentioned this one
and that would be the '97 Eta Aquarids - mine/our first dedicated and in earnest attempt at observing a meteor shower so it was special that way to me - but also it was an awesome show, the best ETA show I have ever seen and I have seen all (majority from dark sites) since (except last years properly)
highlight number one is the best diverging split simultaneous meteors I have ever seen - came out of a perfect single point in the sky (which is weird coz their not supposed to do that) with radiant pretty high, as 4 bright pretty (maybe all mag +1 ) meteors in the shape of perfect cross and travelled a decent similar distance of maybe 10d and left purple/ very weird coloured luminous/glowing trains in the shape of this cross that lasted for a long time - maybe 5 min or so - spooky!
And then the best daylight fireballs I have ever seen, in the now totally clear, bright dawn blue sky upon returning to Adelaide and unpacking the cars. two seperate pairs one pair went west, and the other went south. they were very billowing smoke and the rising sun was illuminating the smoke trains - AWESOME!