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Well i decided to give the Leonids a go last night. Woke up at around 3.30am to relatively clear skies with a bit of high cloud. Once again, the Leonids produced a disappointing show for me. I caught perhaps 2-3 Leonids from 3.30-4.30am. Mind you, I was making this observation from my backyard in Adelaide (+4 limiting magnitude at zenith but more like +3 around Leo due to city lights). I had more fun with the family dog who thought it was great having a 'play' buddy so early in the morning.
I will give the Leonids another go tonight. Mind you, it's pretty overcast here at the moment and it doesn't look like it's going to clear. I have got up to watch every Leonids shower since '98 and they have all been rather disappointing (never got a chance to venture out to dark skies mind you). The 2001 'storm' had been predicted to hit Australia but the one show but out of all the ones from 99-02, it had to be overcast in Adelaide! I did have a small window and saw about 5 shooting stars in about 15 seconds in this small area of clear sky! With my luck, it started to clear at sunrise and I saw a few bright fireballs with one producing a pretty loud 'boom' when it went overhead.
Oh well, I hope this year's shower is late and it clears up here and we get to see few more celestial snowflakes tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I will wait out for the Geminids as they have produced some nice shows of the years
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