During the Fall, a  friend of mine, Mark Egan, invited me to go with him and some friends to view the Leonid Meteor Shower this year, I could not refuse. He had told me of some decent meteor showers he had seen in his life and how this years show was supposed to be very good. I have grown to trust his judgment and knew that this would be an event not to be missed. 

   For what seemed like an eternity I waited for our trip.  We had planned to head for some of those wonderful dry West Texas starry skies. The weather was great two weeks before the event. Then seemingly out of nowhere came a low-pressure system that planted itself in West Texas. Our hopes for it to move out proved not to be enough and the system became a monster to us, swallowing the skies from all of Texas.  Just when the group seemed to dissipate because of the unsure forecast, it came together at last on Friday night of November 16^th.  We would head east!

The crew of meteor chasers consisted of six of us.  Mark, Carrie, Steve, Hannah, Ryan, and I piled into four cars and took off. Once in Louisiana we hit a traffic jam as an acid spill had a large part of I-10 closed off. We were forced to join a very long line of traffic on Highway 99, but somehow made the best of the situation by clowning around on cell phones and CB's. Finally we began to move and made it Baton Rouge very early Saturday to a motel to get some sleep.

Saturday we checked out and went to the Waffle House for a late breakfast/lunch. We enjoyed each others company while slowly waking ourselves up. Everyone talked and Mark and I enjoyed viewing the comics together. 

After our meal we made our way east watching the weather and enjoying the surroundings. After crossing the Mississippi River by Ferry we stopped in a town to look at the Internet and see what the forecast maps were looking like. It didn’t look good.  It looked as if Alabama was our best bet. 

     Mark made several cell phone calls trying to keep up with the weather and where it was clear. We didn’t want to show up and Alabama and end up with cloudy or foggy skies after all that driving. Barbara Wilson, a member of the Houston Astronomical Society, asked us to join the Pontchartrain Astronomy Club for the show. We showed up on site and found a group of people who had already set up. We were warmly welcomed to join the rest of the star-gazers and we set up our observing site. 

     Mark and I went to pick up some more friends in Mississippi. We left at 9 and stopped at the local town for dinner together then we talked and talked as our anticipation of the meteor storm grew. As Mark and I drove we watched the skies for meteors.  At about 12am we rejoined the group for the show. 

A few meteors graced our skies before twelve. Some high level clouds had us worried, but they moved away from us leaving us clear skies once more. The sky transparency was not as good as we had hoped, but still a fair dark sky. 

The meteors became more frequent as time passed. It was an awesome experience to be part of such a large group of people who were viewing the meteors. It was wondrous to hear the whole group of people yell with each bright meteor that crossed the sky. Several fireballs bathed the area in a flood of white light. Many of the meteors flashed many colors of green, yellow, red, orange, and blue. Like out of some dream we sat there watching in awe as the rates increased. However, that was just a tease we hadn’t reached the peak yet:)

At approximately 3am the meteors could be seen in every part of the sky. They were raining out of the skies like drops of dew from the heavens. Any meteors not associated with the shower were coined ‘randomids’ by someone in our crowd. The crowd would be talking quietly to themselves about various things, and then a bright meteor would grace the sky and a whooping roar would rise up from the crowd, as if to meet the meteor as it blazed a trail.

The meteors increased, and between 4 and 4:30am we saw the peak. Most of the meteors came in bursts or flurries, which consisted of five or six meteors. Most of the average meteors, which were quite nice, crossed through Orion, Canis Major, and Ursa Major. Extremely bright ones seemed to focus just above the tree line. Some of the brighter meteors left trains, which still glowing, would curl and twirl in the sky. Mark described some of the bright meteors as flashes of cameras going off. There were some bolides that hit magnitudes of –7 or –8. The rates were so great that I couldn’t keep a count. See a meteor and make a wish? I believe all of the groups’ wishes were answered that night with the most breath-taking meteor shower we could imagine, history in the making. I know that the next time the Leonids give a show like this one I’ll have to meet with them once again.

Special Thanks to

Mark Egan for arranging our group of star-gazers together for a wonderful trip and for the briefing before the event with information on where, when and how. This information can still be found on Leonid 2001 Brief.  Mark also has a wonderful article on the event at Natural Photograph's Leonids 2001. 

And also to the Pontchartrain Astronomy Club for letting us join their corner of space for the show.