Everyone get excited on the first night. Mattress were laid out on sandy ground, propped against chairs. Owners jealously guarding their territories. It was a quiet first night. There were few Leonids, I could sense a atmosphere of 'anxiety' and 'tense' as the quiet crowd continued their 10-15 minutes exposure.( Registering over dense star trails without any meteor trails.) Sand were everywhere and changing film is best avoided in the dark ( It will be disastrous should the film canister accidentally dropped onto the sandy ground).
 

Our Leonid Base Camp view #1 We had our dinner in the center building.	Camp View #2 : The best place for tripod photography was on top of the mosque's rooftop (building on the right with a minaret).  The units on the left can accommodate two to a room.

Nov17/18. I decided to move away from the 'maddening' crowd, I set up my 4 cameras and one low lux video some distance away so that no one will be bothered when my Hi-8 video system spill some light. I spend the first half hours trying out my video system - video taping the M45 - Pleiades and the 'Hyades'. Moon set around 12:30 am and the real show begin. As the radiant point was climbing higher and higher meteors started to appear and my first attempt to do a raw count was interrupted by a enthusiastic observer who came over and had a little chat with me. The increase of the meteor arrival rate were evident around 2:30am. The sky literally opened up and let out streams of meteors around 3:50am. (The predicted peak is 4:07am) There were meteors everywhere. The typical color is greenish yellow and terminal red only detectable in films.
 
  Original Prelim Summary of the nite ( visual/foto/video ) can be found here

/ I hv not re-scanned these fotos yet/
 

Right : Greenish- yellow parallel Leonids streak pass  Polar Star. '8R' enlargement cropped.

At peaks I have seen 2-3 meteors per second! (others claim to see up to 7 meteors per second!). Among these are simultaneous 'star' burst of meteors from the radiant; parallel bright meteors leaving yellowish,smokey wakes. The most unusual meteors for me is right inside the sickle - a short 'fat' small arc with fuzzy (yellowish sparkle) I presume this is the result of near 'head-on'  meteor. When a bright meteor left a eerie greenish gray curtain like train - I was prepared.
 
 
 

Left Image : Bright Meteor train and two faint Leonids close by. ( Direction of travel is upwards) . Details of jets development .  A 50 mm f/1.8 30 seconds Fuji Superia ASA800 exposure.

 

Left  Image : Negative view - If using the two faint Leonids as a guide, it is hard to see whether this bright  meteor travel through similar parallel tracks.

I swung my FM10 towards this and fired two shots. A blow-up on one of this shot revealed 'jets like' luminous streams. Three faint meteors nearby leaving behind horizontal greenish streaks. Sporadic seems to contribute little - the most interesting seen are two isolated incidents of pure white sporadic which looked 'curved'. Another is a head on by-pass of one Leonid and a SPO. Most of the time sporadic seems to have taken the back seats. The group shouts might have woken our Bedouins neighbor ( later we were told they too witnessed the unusual celestial downpour). The high numbers of meteors struck me. Suddenly I realized that I was in the middle of an unexpected STORM LEVEL ! I shivered in excitement ( or was it the less than 5 degree C desert air?) and uttered 'Oh my God' in a strangest - ' possessed like' voice.

Around 4:20 local time , the downpours had reduced in strength but still meteors are falling 'softly' around the horizon. The crowds by now were so used to seeing meteors that they watch in silence, you can hear the synchronous 'Aaaah' and 'Ooooh when bright meteors appeared. Soon day light arrived. We were also treated to one or two deep red meteors in the horizon. Then it was over. The predicted timing is dead CORRECT, the predicted place is CORRECT, the predicted ZHR is.. well - we have too many! ( No one complaint).

Nov 18/19 - Everyone seems to be fairly contented with last night hauls. Most just sat around a bon-fire warming themselves against the cold desert air. Not much observations were conducted on Nov. 19 and I had chosen to retire to bed early. I woke up around 3:30Am and began my solitary watch. I enjoyed the clear night sky. Leonids rate were low ( 1 or 2 per 15 minutes) and there were no unusual activities else I will kick the doors and woke up the rest.

 Part 3 of III  >>>   PART III