Leonids peak November 19th

Jane Houston Jones

As in years past, several AANC members will be participating in the NASA
Leonid Multi-instrument Aircraft Campaign (MAC). This year two aircraft
will fly from Edwards AFB/NASA Dryden to Torrejon AFB in Spain and back
to Edwards. SJAA's Mike Koop will be on the USAF FISTA (Flying Infrared
Signature Technology Aircraft) - a modified NKC135-E with 20
upward-looking window ports oriented at different angles for maximum
coverage of the sky. AANC's Jane and Morris Jones will be aboard the NASA DC-8
Airborne Laboratory. The DC-8 can accomodate remote sensing instruments
at the zenith, 8 degree, and 62 degree elevation viewports.

After landing in Spain two days before the storm night we'll do some
meteor counting practice, some mandatory crew rest and some sightseeing
and then we'll fly west into the two Leonid meteor storms, one over
Europe, and one 6 hours later over the USA, before landing at dawn 
at Offut AFB in Nebraska.

We'll fly and observe the storm from above clouds and water vapor and
away from city lights. The mission web site at
http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/ offers a Java applet that shows what rates
to expect from your location. The rate estimator is here:
http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html. It nicely demonstrates the
change in rates between viewing from downtown, the suburbs, the
countryside, or best, in the mountains.

I hope the November skies at your location will be cloud free and meteor
rich! It will be the last time in our lifetime to observe a Leonid storm.

- Jane Houston Jones, jane@whiteoaks.com