I observed the sky between 0:30am -- 3:30am EST from Squirrel Hill. No cloud. The sky limit mag is around 5. From the backyard 1/3 of the view is obscured by trees and houses, and the rest of the sky is clearly visible. But today's Leonids were somewhat disappointing.

I saw 19 meteors in the three hours, of which 12 were Leonids, 4 seemed to come from Taurus, 2 from the left foot of Orion, the other one not sure.

The number of Leonids are small compared to last year's. Most of them are of mag 2 -- 4, which is also rather faint compared to last year's Leonids. I only saw one bright Leonid today, with mag -1.

All the Leonids were very fast, like a flash. Most of them, although faint, left green or blue trails that lasted less than one second. On the other hand, all the meteors from the direction of Taurus were very slow, with a speed comparable to a satellite or an aircraft. One is so slow that it seemed to be a "floating star" rather than a "shooting star".

The 'best' meteor I saw today came from Taurus and went into the big dipper. It was yellow with a flashing head and a trail with varying width.

Visual Observing Form - Summary Report

Day: 17/18 Month: 11 Year: 1999 Begin: 05h 30m End: 08h 30m

Location long. 79°56' " W lat. 40°27' " E

Site Pittsburgh, PA Country: USA

Observer Xiaojin Zhu

Showers: LEO alpha 153 delta +22