5 minutes exposure, Konica 3200 film.
Canon 50mm f/2 lens.
November 14, 1999.
The leonids are probably the most spectacular meteor shower as about every 33 years they can produce a major storm. During 1999 I observed the shower between thunderstorms, however the rates were disappointing. In 2001 I saw a fair display, however cloud interviened before the main peak occured.
In 2002 there was a good display, although no storm. In that year I was observing from an area with considerable light pollution, plus the Moon was almost full. So in addition to using film, I coupled an Olympus 50mm f/2 lens to an SBIG ST-7 CCD and used that to image meteors. Adding a red filter to dim the light pollution and the moonlight, proved to be a worthwhile combination. Despite the small field of view, I managed to capture 2 leonids.
A sporadic meteor is visible cutting across the brighter leonid at the left. The dark patches around the edge of the image is frosting on the CCD chip.
I was still using film with one camera, and despite the problems with the bright sky and later, clouds, I managed to capture quite a number of leonids.
As the time of maximum approached, the rate of activity climbed. There are 3 leonids in the image. Unfortunately, as the rates climbed, so did the amount of clouds in the sky!!!!! They are easily visible in this image as bands going diagonally across the image. :-(
The sky finally clouded over completely at around 4.25am local time so I had to stop observing. This was only about 45 minutes before the shower produced a good storm!!! :-((((