Like many, I was intrigued by the discussions around the potential for the Leonids in 2001. I consider myself a very amateur, though enthusiastic astronomer and was unsure whether to spend the time, effort and money to see this spectacle given that there were much uncertainty around the predicted rates and the predicted weather.
Peter Anderson had consolidated a lot of Leonids information on his web site and it became clear that I had to get well away from Canberra in order to see much of anything regardless of the dubious weather forecast.
As I had not had a single day off work in 2001 I decided I could not live with myself if I did not try to see this once in a lifetime event. My wife agreed that she couldn’t live with me either in those circumstances, so I booked my flights to (very) sunny Mount Isa!
The flight from Brisbane to Mount Isa on the Saturday morning had many odd looking people clutching astronomy magazines and there was a growing background hum as a number of us met and chatted about the forecasts for rates and weather.
There had been a big thunderstorm the night before and the forecast for the remainder of the weekend was uncertain. I had a hire car and spent some time poking around Mount Isa, but it was very hot I eventually decided to simply rest and relax in my motel room in anticipation of a clear Sunday night.
Len Fulham of the local astronomy group had made his group’s facilities available with many people staying at the Lions Youth Camp about fifty metres from the group’s viewing site. Len and his colleagues did a great job in providing support and activities for a range of folk from many parts of the world and certainly made us out-of-towners very welcome.
On Sunday I headed out to the local astronomy society’s Moondarra observatory at Lake Moondarra. On the way there is a lookout from which you could gaze back towards Mount Isa over the large manmade recreational lake, while in the opposite direction there was a natural bowl with a low range of hills surrounding it.
It was an interesting view as the vegetation in the bowl was much greener with a clear line where green became brown half way up the hills. I assume this was a result of higher humidity in this somewhat sheltered environment.
That night I had a great BBQ dinner with others who had also chosen Lake Moondarra as their strategic viewing point. There was a very warm breeze blowing continuously and I found myself napping on the grass while waiting for midnight. As a teaser we saw a number of (Puppids Albert?) meteors between 10-11pm which appeared as soft, intense white dabs of a paint brush that quickly faded.
A contingent from Japan had not only come over to view the Leonids but had been enterprising enough to hire a mobile satellite relay in a van along with operator which had been driven up from Sydney. As it turned out, they were intending to broadcast the Leonids live back to Japan!
An impressive demonstration of technology, though I was slightly wary of so much delicate electronic equipment potentially having a failure at an inopportune moment, resulting in lights being turned on and a mobile generator brought into action. On the spur of the moment I decided that I should head off on my own to absorb the experience on my own without potential interruption.
At around 12:30am someone announced that the radiant should now be at the horizon. On queue, a gray/green object rose above the horizon crossing directly overhead and traversing most of the sky to the opposite horizon with a very evident 20-30 degrees trail behind.
After a chat about appropriate exposures for my SLR and digital camera from some more experienced observers, I snuck away to return to that lookout that had caught my eye earlier.
I didn’t try doing any counting myself as I was already overwhelmed by the spectacle of the large number of grazers that started the nights show. It really is difficult to convey the raw emotions I felt standing on an elevated part of the local landscape with a completely unobstructed view in all directions as more and more meteors raced across the sky at different speeds and intensities.
I set my cameras up with cable releases and sat back to simply view the show. For five hours I witnessed the most amazing natural display I have ever seen in my life. It was truly a humbling experience and it really is impossible to convey the awe of seeing washes of meteors radiating out across the sky.
A storm front building on the very distant horizon added some more fireworks of its own but never approached close enough to be more than a patch of activity on the horizon. Although the sky did become partly cloudy at times during the evening, that also did little to reduce the impact.
The meteors ranged from slow and elegant to brief flashes of light. One bright meteor appeared to slice through Jupiter! At many times there were more meteors zipping around than I could take in with my eyes. In one two minute wide angle exposure on my SLR I estimate around 30-40 meteors (hopefully) passed through the frame centred on the Southern Cross.
I took many photos but unfortunately due to new work commitments I have had little time to examine these closely. I suggest you visit Leo Stachowicz’s Leonids 2001 web site for some excellent photos of the location and Leonid meteors. The photo of Lake Moondarra appears to be from my personal vantage point. I’ll try to get some photos up on the CAS web site in the near future.
One thing I learned about taking these photos is that you should take one normal shot at the beginning of the roll, otherwise you will have some very odd looking shots as prints may overlap more than one frame leading to some real challenges in recognising the star field. You should also avoid getting prints done at places like K-mart as their automated machines don’t like really dark photos.
Even as I drove back to Mount Isa at around 5:45am with dawn well on its way, there were still streaks of light in the sky above the mine creating a surreal image with the golden hue of the mine lights offset by golden flashes in the blue sky above above.
I’m really glad I took the risk of traveling to Mount Isa, well aware of the risk of being rained out and having made the journey for nothing. As it is, I had a provocative experience that has given me a different perspective on life and I encourage anyone contemplating making the effort to view a significant astronomical event to bite the bullet, even if it is a long shot.
Note: All times in this article are in local time which is UT+10 as Queensland does not observe daylight saving.
