LEONIDS, CENTRAL AUSTRALIA 2001


Rule One is different for meteors: Get some sleep early. 

A trip organised by the Astronomical Society of Victoria.

We arrive in Alice Springs on Friday November 16. The resort selected by the ASV is comfortable, except for the alcohol rationing. For every customer, only six cans of beer and a bottle of wine per day, and they write it in a logbook. Still, one can survive, particularly if one's wife is a light drinker. Friday night, we wander to the end of the street, enjoy a dark sky and a few meteors.

Six cans and a bottle of wine--
My ration of turps went down fine.
Had my wife's too, no trouble,
But the seeing was double.
"Twelve Leonids!" "No mate, Orion"

Saturday night, a small group scopes out the selected dark site, an airstrip only used in the daytime. Clear skies, a good chance to see some northern hemisphere deep sky objects through Paul Medcraft's 12.5" telescope (Paul was then the editor of Crux, the ASV's journal). Sunday morning from 2 am, a few Leonids, a few Taurids, a few sporadics. 

Not promising. If the Leonids build up to a peak and then fade, where's the buildup? And there were some clouds about.

The clouds stayed away at the site,
And we saw some Leonids all right.
M31! Just the job
In the editor's Dob;
But "sporadic" was the word of the night.

On Sunday night, a much larger group at the airstrip. No cloud. On Monday morning, in the hours before dawn, we saw thousands of Leonids. Many went right across the sky. We could be looking the other way, hear a shout of "north" or "straight up" and still have time to turn and see them. We could hear a shout of "south" and look north by mistake, and see one anyway. We saw pairs of meteors coming out of the radiant in a V shape. Sometimes we saw six and seven meteors at once. We saw meteors horizontal from the radiant, skimming the treetops for 100 or more degrees. We saw smoke trails lasting several minutes. In early daylight we could see meteors just by their smoke trails.

In every direction they'd flash.
They'd leave trails of smoke and of ash.
Sore necks were a menace--
Like watching the tennis.
We cheered every overhead smash.

Monday, time to look around town.   The Museum of Central Australia has an extensive collection of meteorites.  The Grand Circle Yeperenye Sculpture commemorates the most important of the three caterpillars regarded by the local aborigines as their ancestors.

Monday night a few diehards are out for a few hours of watching early Tuesday. Not much meteor activity, but clear sky, no complaints, and praise for the forecasters who got the time just right (Rob McNaught, Australian National Observatory, and David Asher, Armagh Observatory, Ireland).

Who cares if the tickets we bought
Left our bank accounts a bit short.
Including the rentacar,
Ten cents per shooting star.
Our blessings on Mr McNaught.

We leave on Tuesday with an ode to those cosmic dust grains.

Bunched up at the system's formation,
Pushed off at the last visitation.
Can't call them a failure
If they come to Australia
And burn up for our delectation.