Leonid meteor storm

So, did anybody catch that last night?
Anyone have a good view?

I had a very restricted view of the NNW sky, had *severe* light pollution issues from those damn sodium vapors outside my window, and yet I still managed to see about 200 Leonid meteors from around 1-4am.

Only one was what I would call "spectacular" and it happened to be the very first meteor I saw.
The projectile itself was an eye-piercing, whitish violet color with a darker violet coma, and left a long, green & white tail with red & violet edges.
It wouldn't suprise me at all if that particular one left some elements behind in our atmosphere that aren't even on the periodic table yet.

After seeing this one, I set up my cheapo digital camera on the off-chance that I might be able to catch one with it. They're much faster than most of the really bright "shooting stars" and were usually gone by the time my brain sent the "push shutter button" message to my fingers. But I did manage to catch ONE meteor with the camera.

I watched and watched but gave up due to the light pollution. I saw several small tails, but nothing to write home about. I would have given a lot to see this from the unlit country.

I caught around 10 with colorfull tails from 1-1:30 am. By then I was too cold to stay out any more. This was in my back yard - even with the light pollution, I could still see them well enough. The ones I saw died out rather quickly - one fast streak across the sky, then poof - it was gone. Kind of like the roman candle fireworks that shoot up and leave a trail for a second or two.

I got home from work around 1:30am and went outside around 3:20am to see the show. I saw a couple dozen in about twenty minutes, some were big and bright but most were small and quick to die out. I must have been half asleep, because some were so bright it almost seemed like you could hear them zoom across the sky. I actually fell asleep (long day of work) laying on the ground and woke up around 4am freezing my butt off.

This is the first time I've ever seen more than 2 or 3 shooting stars in any given night.

I did see one explode over Eureka/Loleta California when I was about four, but I don't remember too much of the event, other than it was slow and bright; and left a big puffy glowing cloud & long train that stayed visible in the sky for up to an hour afterwards, and it created a rumbling explosion sound that came several minutes after the visible blast. This would have occurred sometime between 1967 and 1969 (summer months) if there are any astronomical researchers watching these forums.

And until last night, I'd never seen one in any color other than white or an off yellow-white; nor have I seen any that left visible tails behind. So in my opinion, it was well worth staying up all night for.

I did see one explode over Eureka/Loleta California when I was about four, but I don't remember too much of the event, other than it was slow and bright; and left a big puffy glowing cloud & long train that stayed visible in the sky for up to an hour afterwards, and it created a rumbling explosion sound that came several minutes after the visible blast.

I think what you saw was a missle or rocket launch go bad. I seem to recall something like that on a campout when I was in the boy scouts around that time, but I wasn't that far north. Yeah, that's the ticket - a rocket launch - well it could have been!

UK - sadly, the weather was deeply overcast.
Didn't see a thing.

Last and only time I saw shooting stars was about 30 years ago, when I was on an illicit all-night "expedition". (It may have been the Leonids then, I don't know.)

We saw beautiful white arcs across the night sky, about 10 of them. At first, surprised, I couldn't believe it, thought I was imagining things. Just the wonder of it ......

lightlover