Leonid Storm 1999 aboard the ARIA

The drive from NASA Ames Research Center near San Francisco to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert was the beginning of my Leonid '99 adventure. It would end 10 days later, spanning half the globe during over 40 flying hours, mostly at night. Our group of 70 included 40 researchers, 25 Air Force personnel, and 5 members of the press -- give or take a few. We filled three aircraft. We were guests at 7 Air Force Bases; 4 in the US, two in the UK and one in Portugal's Azores. We literally covered the seams of the earth -- from the San Andreas fault on the border of the Pacific and North America plate to the Mid Atlantic Ridge on the island of Terceira in the Azore Archipelago of Portugal. We even had a short 12 hour stay in downtown Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean Sea. Why all this November travel? The Leonid Storm of 1999, of course!

I was part of a 6 person team of mostly amateur astronomers, mostly experienced meteor observers on the flux measurement team. For 6 airborne nights the team counted the Leonids. The team was international in makeup. Claus Jobse from the Dutch Meteor Society developed the intensified image cameras. Gary Kronk from the American Meteor Society contributed vast meteor knowledge. Dave Holman from California Meteor Society brought a wealth of knowledge gleaned from many meteor campaigns with international experts. Chris Crawford from Oregon developed the software and counting technology and with it, over 30 years of meteor observing experience. Kelly Beatty from Sky and Telescope magazine rounded out the full time flux measurement team. Michael (Schmitty) Schmidhuber from Germany (working for ESA, the European Space Agency but on loan from the German Space Operations Center) ran his own image intensified camera and counted meteors with us some of the time.

Matt Lacey, of the NASA Ames Astrobiology mission and a graduate student at Stanford, ran experiments studying the spectra of persistent trains at high and low resolution; he had his own goggles and observed on his own right next to us. A Celestron Firstscope was part of his "eyes" to the Leonids. 19 year old Dave Nugent, a student at De Anza College was our computer guy, and made the rest of us feel very old.

Two other groups had experiments on my Air Force plane, the ARIA. Mike Taylor from the University of Utah was studying airglow and looked for sodium and magnesium in the persistent trains of the meteors. A group including scientists from NHK, the Japanese television network, had an array of HDTV cameras and spectrum grabbing equipment. They broadcast and recorded the greatest show on earth. One of their cameras was hooked up to one of our eye-goggles and flux measurement devices, so we got a HDTV view of the Leonid Storm. Dr Peter Jenniskens, project P.I. from NASA AMes and the SETI Institute, rounded out our team. The press contingent, from BBC, AP, NHK, NASA, Air Force, Spacenews dot com, and Sky and Telescope wove through the aisles. Kelly was working on our team, so while airborne, he wore his meteor flux measurement hat, not his media hat. Sixteen Air Force personnel manned our flight, and through the mission became part of our extended family. They held the mission together. Oh, there was one other thing that held the mission together. Can you guess? Why duct tape, of course!

The ARIA, acronym for Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft was our workplace most nights. This aircraft features among other things, a snoopy nosed holding tank in front for telemetry and a radar dish for downlinking data to Nasa Ames and US Space Command sites around the world. Newly installed optical glass windows would soon be covered in black plastic, hiding the array of 10 cameras. Cameras which soon would view the ancient cometary debris known as the Leonids.

The mission began Saturday morning, November 13, when "the wheels are in the well", as the pilot said. The five hour flight to the east coast, a refueling break, and a 7 hour flight to the UK were our first practice Leonid Storm runs. We set up equipment and counted meteors. We yelled at the media who shined bright cameras in our eyes. They didn't do it the rest of the flight (well, without asking anyway). It was a practice run for them too! Halfway across the Atlantic Matt Lacey noticed an unusual spectral signature on his spectrometer. We had hoped against hope to see and study the Aurora Borealis and there it was, pillars, curtains and flames of brilliance. A lone meteor streaked though the light show. A dramatic punctuation point. The other plane had asked for and had been granted permission to turn around and circle the auroral show, so their upward looking cameras (on the wrong side of the plane only) could gather data never gathered from an airborne observatory. We all whooped and hollered, excited beyond belief! We shared the goggles, which intensified the light show dramatically over the views out the non-optical glass windows. 30 years of aircraft use had left them badly scratched. We glimpsed the aurora spectacle through all available windows, goggles and the array of television monitors. And we filmed hours of Leonids streaking through the aurora borealis. What a show! But the real show had not even begun yet!

Our first night over the Atlantic was a night of trial and error. And success! We wanted to prepare ourselves for the real mission. It turns out that many of the researchers accomplished many of their goals on that first night. The Japanese group from the television network NHK imaged sprites above the clouds and lightning in and below the clouds. The Utah group was successful capturing Airglow spectrums stereoscopically. And everyone got the auroral display they hoped for.

My part on the flux measurement team was to count meteors and estimate the magnitude. Any meteor not a Leonid was counted as a sporadic, even though it was clear we saw plenty of other meteors such as Taurids. On this mission, there were only two categories, Leonid and sporadic. We had plenty to do just worrying about the Leonids.

We planned three nights of Leonid Storm measurement. Both the nights before and after the expected storm were full-time observing sessions for the flux measurement group. Last year's peak came earlier than planned and we didn't want to be caught with our goggles off. We had two nights in England, and we practiced with our goggles and counters on the ground, in the aircraft both nights. A contingency plan was devised in case the counting software couldn't keep up with the shower. We developed a manual form to use just in case. And we copied enough of them to see us though the peak night.

We were also getting used to being on a Universal Time schedule, the time we would keep to for the duration of the mission. So we worked (well mostly worked) at night and observed crew rest during the day. We did have a couple hours for English beer and camaraderie before crew rest in England both days. Some of us enjoyed cream tea and visits to many Cambridge colleges and gardens and a walk along the Cam one afternoon. One night Peter Jenniskens gave a school presentation, where he made a comet, and a dozen of us talked to the students, who afterwards wanted our autographs! Our visit inspired many students, and was one of my personal highlights of the trip. We poured liquid nitrogen (used on the other plane) on the school tables and explained meteors to a packed audience at a school on a nearby Air Force Base. The other night was, um ... ok it was a beer party in my room in the officer's quarters! But we worked on the aircraft 'till 1:30 AM that night (morning) before the party! For some, this was a highlight of the trip, and I have the pictures to prove it! And we all quit the party in time for scheduled crew rest. Barely!

The next days and nights blend together. It was the Leonid Storm, after all! The reason we were invited on this mission was to measure the flux of the Leonids. We traveled from England to Tel Aviv one night, to the Azores Archipelago of Portugal the next and then, on to Florida the next, and then home. Each crew rest period was barely enough time to take a quick look see of a new part of the world, followed by barely got enough sleep to be ready for mission night. Those of us who stay up all night as amateur astronomers had a distinct advantage. Both Gary Kronk and I mentioned we got more sleep than usual on this mission!! Now, it is my great pleasure to present the Leonid storm of 1999!

November 17th - Mildenhall AFB to Tel Aviv

21:15 on the 16th was the scheduled departure time from Mildenhall, but there were some delays - geo-political delays we with goggles had no idea about 'till afterwards. We were not allowed to fly over several countries air space, which ruined some of the stereoscopic imaging opportunities between the two aircraft -- and delayed the take-off. We grumbled at the hurry up and wait scenario. We anxiously awaited reaching 10,000 feet altitude, which was the level where we could leave our seat belted seats and set up cameras, goggles and computer. The rush to set up and observe was thrilling to watch and thrilling to experience. Most stations took maybe 10 minutes and a little duct tape to accomplish. Immediately after turning on our goggles we were clicking away . We saw Leonids or sporadics immediately. We had our first ZHR for the night 10 minutes later. The ZHR reached 15 Leonids and 14 sporadics this night. Updated every 10 minutes, we were very happy to see results close to predicted numbers.

The flux measurement team was a cohesive and helpful and fun group, just what you would expect from a bunch of amateur astronomers who got a free trip to the greatest show on (above) earth! Morning was dawning after many airborne hours aloft, and we took advantage of it, snoozing for minutes or more after stowing the equipment. Our stay in Tel Aviv was short. I took a walk on the Mediterranean almost to the ancient port of Jaffa (in my case), and some shopping with one of the three women on the mission (yes, there are shopping malls in Tel Aviv). I slept 4 hours. We had a nice group dinner at a trendy restaurant in Tel Aviv, and awaited the trip to the aircraft. We were ready for Leonid Peak night!

November 18th Tel Aviv to Terceira, Azores

At 23:00 hours we departed Tel Aviv. We were itching to set up and count meteors. An Air Force Colonel, Col. Pete Worden, joined us. He was the driving force behind funding this mission, and an honestly fantastic man. He loaded luggage into the cargo bay, donned goggles (I gave him a look through mine during the peak), talked over the internet to thousands and basically was a part of our mission. He has a Ph.D. in Astronomy, and told us not to "BS" him too much! He observed the Leonids last year from Mongolia!

The moment we were set up we saw Leonids. Lots of Leonids! I clocked the time I began counting at 23:37, and the expected peak was at 2:00, a little more than two hours later. I was counting twenty to thirty Leonids every 10 minutes right away. It is a good thing there was not a bigger group on the flux measurement team, because not one of us wanted to relinquish our goggles! We didn't want to take any eye breaks and miss any of the action! At about 00:45 November 19th the rates began to rise dramatically. Last night's ZHR of 15 soon became 50. Our intensive image cameras allowed us to see meteors down to 7th or 8th magnitude, lower than a normal person in a dark sky could see with a naked eye, so our "clicks" on the mouse were statistically adjusted. Leonids increased ten-fold every 10 minutes. Soon we were seeing multiple meteors in our goggles. They appear to stream down in clumps. Some seconds there were none, other seconds there were 5 to 15 in our field of view at the same time. The pauses between the "clumps" was dramatic! There were more faint magnitude 5 thru 7 meteors during the peak of the storm.

Everyone on the aircraft was energized. Whooping and hollering was heard in all quarters. The pilots had an awesome view! All the television monitors were showing the amazing images, a bank of 10 monitors held the media folks captive while they scribbled the times of the great fireballs for worldwide media distribution. Everyone without another duty was glued to window, monitor or goggle! I distinctly heard "wow" in Japanese, Dutch, German, English, American English, and Canadian English. I'm sure you all will understand that "wow" sounds the same in every language on earth! I felt part of a global light show that will never happen again in my lifetime. I savored every minute of it!

Now, I was clicking madly on my mouse, and could not keep up with the Leonids. The peak of the storm began promptly on schedule at about 2:00, rising to 2300 Leonids per hour. We actually saw many more Leonids each, but the numbers were adjusted for ZHR. Each member of my team hollered that they could not keep up! Each massive fireball or mighty mass of faint meteors brought exclaims of joy and wonder! We had a power outage during the peak, and some cameras needed film reloading just at the crucial moments. So I truly believe that once we go back to the tapes, and count every single meteor, and adjust for the ZHR, that the final peak of 2300 will go up quite a bit. I've seen other observers reports of 2,000 to 5,000 Leonids. I'll bet our number won't reach 5,000, but will be more than 2,300. The peak ebbed dramatically after about 10 minutes. We all knew when it was over, and in some ways we were glad, and some ways we were disappointed that the mighty show was over so soon. I heroically relinquished my goggles to Dr. Peter Jenniskens right during the peak. He was the driving force of the mission and the reason I was there to witness it, so I felt he had a right to see his dream come true ... to witness a Leonid Storm. I'll bet he didn't click the mouse every time he saw a Leonid. He was saying "Oh" "Oh" "Oh" with each passing Leonid, and I'm sure the brain cannot process both visual and aural orders, and make the finger press the mouse button at the same time. But I don't question my choice to let him see the main show! Plus, I was sitting in the easiest seat to relinquish. Soon after Peter left, Col. Worden was wanting to don the goggles. Well, he was sort of hovering, and it wasn't hard to read his mind, even in the dark. I again relinquished my precious goggles, and let him have a look. I then watched the meteor storm of 1999 through the window, naked eye, just like observers throughout the world were attempting to do. Seeing Leonids rain down on Canis Major, mighty Orion, and other constellations through the scratched windows was exhilarating! I'm glad I got to see them first hand too!

High five's abounded! Air force personnel hugged their civilian counterparts! We were all in ecstasy! We had witnessed and videotaped the Leonid Storm of 1999!

The ARIA flew through the old comet debris. Never were Shakespeare's words "Parting is such sweet sorrow" more appropriate. The peak of the Leonid Storm of 1999 was over so soon! The flux measurement team was spent. We were exhausted! The anticipation, the speculation, the practice had drained every ounce of our energy. We had eaten every peanut butter cracker, every Skittle in sight. We even ate the fruit! Was it worth it? You bet! It was worth every every minute of wakeful or subconscious effort. We had witnessed a Leonid Meteor Storm! What do you do when the storm is over? Celebrate? Crack open some bubbly? Nah, we kept counting meteors, of course!

The storm peaked at 2300 ZHR barely 20 minutes after it began. By 03:00 the numbers were down to 500 ZHR, still alot of beautiful meteors to observe and count. By 04:00 the count was back down to less than 50 Leonids per hour, adjusted to ZHR. Although exhausted, we tried our best to keep observing, to catch the falling stars, to record our meteor counts. And to bid farewell to the Leonids. I gave up the ghost at 4:30 am, after nearly 5 hours of counting or looking out the window, and walked around the aircraft, watching the video monitors replay the best and brightest for the NASA highlight shows. I slept a little too.

We were all interviewed at one time or another over our nights of Leonid watching, sometimes with night vision cameras in the dark - filming the flux team in action, displayed in eerie green florescence on tiny monitors in the dark. We looked like some alien creatures from a science fiction show, goggles with a bright red "on button" light glowing out from where our eyes should be. Sometimes the interviews were conducted in more of a studio-like setting back with the media crew. We looked terrible, in the dark or in the light. Mole-like squinty eyes used to the dark (like the amateur astronomers we are!) or puffy sleep-deprived eyes and faces captured for the world to see on television. It was "Live from the Leonids", starring 70 or so of the luckiest folks above the planet!

This was a very long flight night. From Tel Aviv, carefully to the Azores we sped, skirting outlawed airspace. We were flying near Greece but not over Greece during the Leonid Peak. Out the window of the plane, we could see the blinking light of our sister aircraft, the FISTA often during the 10+ hour flight. That aircraft, too, was packed with researchers, all experiencing the same mental and physical euphoria and exhaustion we were. We communicated back and forth. 80 miles away, their parallel track matched ours. For a while the head winds drained their progress and fuel. There was some talk of refueling in Spain. Out our windows the great cities of Europe passed by below. Vast darkness was the more prevalent view. I spent some time observing the spoke-like shapes of light radiating from the great city of Madrid. The twinkling coasts of Spain. Bright Barcelona. Sparkeling islands offshore. Then more darkness.

November 19: The Island of Terceira.

Never did breakfast smell and sound more appealing than in the officers dining room at Lajes Field, Azores. We were famished. But first, the big press conference. Luckily, coffee, juice, water and sweet rolls were waiting for us after passing though Portuguese customs. We again were questioned, photographed and peppered with camera flashes. On to breakfast, sleep, and a walk about the charming village of Praia. Then some time to freshen up for the fantastic local dinner banquet on the island's golf course. Terceira, one of the nine islands that make up the Azores Archipelago boasts a geologic hump known as the Mid Atlantic ridge. Hot springs and cinder cones are evidence of the tectonic underwater activity here. We dined on a local dish, Alcatra. Beef simmered in clay pots left in the hot springs which abound on these islands. After no food on Leonid night, we were still starving by dinnertime, and dug in. We all savored the local fish, chicken, but most of all the Alcatra. Champagne corks were popping at every table (except for the Air Force crew's table). Portuguese wine filled the goblets. We hugged and cheered ourselves and each other.

I sat with a reporter from the Stars and Stripes Magazine over from Spain for the big story, and the Lajes Field Public Affairs officer. I learned all about the "burger burn," the ceremony of cooking hamburgers for our U.S. military returning from the hot spots of the world. Lajes Field is where many enter or leave civilization. After a year in the desert, or a tour of duty in a war torn part of central Europe, Lajes Field puts on an all-American feast for its honored guests. Kegs of beer and 'burgers are lavished on our servicemen and women - a brief glimpse of home, before a return to loved ones and special familiar places. A thank you, of sorts, from these far flung representatives of a grateful nation.

Afterwards we all had the luscious coffee specialty of the islands. Somewhat like a café latte, but even more yummy, it was served in a tall narrow glass. I'll remember what it is called eventually, probably when I search the internet for the recipe. I can still taste the Alcatra and smell the coffee from my brief stopover on Terceira. I hope to return someday.

Hours later, we donned our flight suits again, packed our gear and boarded busses for a drive to the Lajes flight line. It was another work night for the flux measurement team. We had a several hour wait in the aircraft, and finally took off for Florida. After what seemed like 12 hours, we landed. After what seemed like more hours we passed U.S. customs. After what seemed like even more hours, we checked into the Cocoa Beach Hilton. It was hours! Hours and hours and hours! We arrived at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time to find our rooms would not be ready 'till 11:00 a.m. Flight suited researchers and Air force personnel crashed on the lobby floor, and every available chair and couch. Snoring blue and green flight suited beings (if you could call them that!) littered the lobby. 7 hours later, refreshed, tanned from walks on the beach or at least rested and cleaned, we all gathered for the final ceremony. A beach barbecue! The hurricane of the day was not too far out in the Atlantic, and soon we were pelted with rain and wind. In came the food and beer and desserts. In came the Leonid MAC '99 group, 80 strong, gathering 'round the bar! We all could toast each other, and celebrate this time. The flight crew were our special honored guests. Award certificates were handed out by Col. Pete Worden and Dr. Peter Jenniskens. We all exchanged email addresses. I sat with the parents of MSGT Greg Williams from Sarasota, Florida, and vowed to visit them next month when I spend the holidays in Sarasota.

More hours later, 9 of us piled into a small compact car and travelled about a mile to the Waffle House for breakfast. Best to leave the rest to your imagination, but the waffles, I understand were great!

Postscript:

What were my very favorite moments of this trip? Was it spending the darkened work hours with my friends on the Leonid Storm '99 Flux Measurement Team? Or was it sharing cream tea with Bill and Kristina Smith in Cambridge? Perhaps nudging Chris Crawford on the first night, to share with him the aurora borealis through my eye-goggles. No, maybe it was my first or my last Leonid, streaking through the goggles, or whizzing past Orion's belt through a scratchy 707 window. Was it looking down on Arizona's Meteor Crater, just an hour before landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Saturday November 20th at 3:00 pm? Was it the many bus trips to the many flight lines throughout the world? Strapping on the oxygen kits for a walkabout the aircraft? Watching moonset over the Atlantic? Sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea? A glimpse at the Southern Cross, Eta Carina and Omega Centauri through the window shortly before landing in Florida? The helpful teams of Air Force personnel at every stop of our great adventure? Maybe the Alcatra on Terceira?

Sights and sounds and smells will evoke all of these memories - more than enough to fill a lifetime or a scrapbook. I think I'll cherish all of them. And the many more that will appear in my thoughts as time passes.

Jane Houston , Astronomer