Nov 18/19/01 - Another night to remember - long trail and long
duration earth grazers-fireballs -and more fireballs- persistent trains
- ground illuminating meteor-
 | Spent the day time setting up my instruments - assembly of T-70 cameras, link up with T3 cables and loading ASA800s ( kept in fridge since 99) and set up video systems. Lens were pre-focused in poor Singapore night sky and tapped down to prevent focus shift. |
| Scouting a place for my four tripods. Not wanting to spill lights on others I selected a 'secluded' area half- way to Observatory's 1.8m reflector. After four trips I managed to haul all my set ups there. |
| Night descended -and I walk around to find out where others were - AKM were setting up their intensifier systems between the Solar Telescope and another small building. Visual count folks were just outside of the Observatory adm buildings: Some sat on chairs, some cocooned in sleeping bags or special reclining supports. Two or three were at 1.8 meter reflector up the hill. There are plenty of places to set up your gear undisturbed on good pavement. |
| Fog Scare Temperature was just 4 C and the sky was lovely. Then without warning large ominous looking billowing fog/clouds roll towards us hours before the storm. I look at my Casio watch - the temperature had soared to 11 C. The warm moist air condensed on everything in sight. Luckily the ponchos saved the 'night'. I used this to cover the six T-70 cameras - a move that save the whole system - as I later found out the 4.2 kg 12AH gel battery slipped my hand when I tried to take it out of the bag. The terminal slug broke my thumb nails drawing blood. This is the 2nd Kendrick anti-dew system for the camera arrays! So it was out of action - no dew protection. Luckily no dew was encountered for the rest of the night during the storm. Without the ponchos the condensation collected on the lens will freeze out! |
| 'Plan B' or 'go some where' plan was hatched - The groups gathered in the adm block there are talks about going for a lower elevations to avoid the fog. A scout car was send down hill to check out the visibility. Meanwhile the engine of the bus was kept running in anticipation of a move. I decided to stay put - won't have time and energy to relocate the instruments. Luck was on my side when the fog/cloud cleared up well before 1400 UT. |
| Night continue.. Clear sky returned (LM mag 6.0+) The earlier film of water on ponchos had turned into ice!! In this sub-zero temperature, the RCA wires and 12 volt wire seems to have life of their own - they are stiff and can be held standing upright! I turned the Kendrick heater to high setting to keep the largest glass surfaces - the two fisheyes bone-dry and started un-timed exposures as I waited for my anticipation of the on rush of meteors. |
| Somewhere along the night ( was 17:20?) I fired the T-70s array with programmed 6 minutes exposure and 3 seconds delay (to allow for tape transportation with safety margins). And also aimed the aspheric 69x89 degree lens/watec-pair towards Orion. I placed both the recording video walkman and gel battery in a zip-up haversack ( to shield against cold). Train spotter camera-video pair (avenir 25mm f0.9/watec902H and EOS100) sat on another tripod.. Somehow only two video system survive the cold - the other two had battery problem - I had forgotten to zip the Orion bag - exposing the video cameras/Lithium battery to the sub freezing temperature. |
| Leonids arrived..., streaming all over the places. The radiant slowly climbed into view and for the next few hours we oooh and aaah and gasped at the bright fireballs - persistent train here and there. Most exhibit the customary green- yellow- red or just a terminal burst of yellow/red. A few were 'stand-outs' from the crowds: while most of the train observed lasted ~ 3 seconds there are exceptions. ( rough guess of one train every 10-20 bright meteors?) I remembered one intense fireball in the west, seconds later I still can discern the individual rainbow -colored segments lingered for a seconds or two, slowly faded away while at the same time dilated and spread into the typical linear arrow based shaped, changing into a color of pale green/gray. It was like someone had left the still wet water painting out in the rain. Two others were intentionally caught by 25mm f/0.90 watec-902H setup. A fireball exploded close to Ursa Major, a beautify arrow shaped train developed, distortion started to change the the beginning end into a triangular shape. Minutes later I re-look at Ursa and saw a unfamiliar nebulous comet-like cloud on the left of the Ursa Major. Seconds later after realizing it was the train remains I wasted no time to aim the avenir 10 degree video system towards it and recorded it on tapes. The smoke ring dilated into a pear shaped some xx minutes later. It was my first meteor train on VIDEO. |
| Ground illuminating fire ball - My first experience. I was facing away from the burst. Suddenly I saw the ground lit up - a meteor had exploded in my back. For a split second I can see clearly my Orion telescope bag, its content - as if some one had triggered a flash light. |
| Dawn slowly approaches - the leonids was still going strong. Slowing the sky brighten, Venus crawled from the eastern horizon. Leonids was still evident - many yellow dashes against the brightening east. |