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1966 Leonids: Don Pearson
Don Peason was an astronomy student at the University of Arizona in Tucson in 1966. He sent this account to me during November 1998--
Thirteen of us, mostly students, drove to observe and record the Leonids atop Kitt Peak on the night of Nov. 16-17, 1966. We formed a circle of chairs and began to study our assigned areas of the sky for meteors. It started off slowly, about 30/hour. After 3 hours it picked up dramatically, and we observed a peak of about 40/second that lasted for 10 to 20 minutes. This was 24,000 in a ten minute period, a rate of 144,000/hour. We stood in awe as the sky seemed filled with meteors. With this number of meteors falling simultaneously, and all from the same radiant, the shortening of their paths near the radiant was quite obvious. I was fortunate to have a 35 mm camera and tripod with me, and had several pictures of the shower printed on the cover of Sky and Telescope shortly after. I doubt I'll ever witness anything in the sky as spectacular as the Leonids of 1966.
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