President Bernie Zelazny called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM in Room 300 Lawrence Hall on the Sul Ross Campus. There were 19 people present. 
       Bernie reported that the Leonid Meteors are expected to peak about 3-6 AM on November 18. Estimates are as high as about 4,000 meteors per hour at the peak.
       John Bell gave a program on Big Eyes in Arizona describing a visit to Kitt Peak.
       At the business meeting after the program, the minutes of the previous meeting were accepted as printed in the October Newsletter.

       Betty Grimm submitted the following treasurer's report:

       John recently visited Tucson on an Elderhostel Tour. The planned night trip to Kitt Peak was called off because of bad weather, but the group made a day trip to the peak. The elevation at Kitt Peak is close to that of McDonald, about 6,800 feet, but the local relief is greater. Kitt Peak towers about 5,000 feet above the surroundings, while Mt. Locke rises less than half that much above its surrounds. Kitt Peak was named in 1874 by the original surveyor for his sister.
       A visit to the Steward Mirror Laboratory, under the football stadium at the University of Arizona, was very instructive. [Some of us will remember some other technical goings-on under a football stadium a few years ago.] The Mirror Lab is finishing two 8.4-meter mirrors (27 feet!) for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), the largest one-piece mirrors ever made. [The Hobby-Eberly Scope at McDonald is 11 meters in diameter, but the mirror is made of 91 hexagonal segments.]
       The Mirror Lab has developed a method of spin casting that makes it possible to cast a mirror with a deep surface curvature.  If we placed a bowl of water on a turntable and rotated it gently, the surface of the water would take on a parabolic shape - lower in the center and higher at the sides of the bowl. In spin casting a mirror, the glass is melted in an oven that gently rotates at a few revolutions per minute. Like the water in the bowl, the top surface of the molten glass takes on a parabolic shape, close to the final shape of the mirror. Grinding and polishing such a mirror requires much less work than a flat disk of glass would require. 
       To save tons of weight, the bottom of the oven is floored with blocks that cast a honeycomb pattern into the back of the mirror. The glass is melted at 1180 deg Centigrade. The melting and cooling process takes 3 months. John's video, Eyes on the Sky, showed the loading of the oven, its rotation, and the polishing of one of the mirrors. The LBT is an  f1.1 instrument, requiring mirrors with a deep surface curvature. The polishing tool changes its shape as it moves over the surface of the mirror.
       The LBT will consist of two 8.4-meter telescopes side by side, like a pair of binoculars.  Such an arrangement greatly increases the resolution of the BLT, to about 10 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope (resolution is the ability of a scope to see very tiny objects). Adaptive optics, consisting of  a "rubber mirror" between the main mirror and the receptor, and a "rubber secondary" will reduce the distorting effects of the earth's atmosphere and further contribute to resolution.

       Below are some comments and questions concerning the Dark Skies Fellows proposals. These are preliminary since our (Big Bend Astronomical Society) newsletter this month will invite comments from our members. A preliminary response of those attending our last meeting was that the various category fees were much too high for most if not all members of our group. As one member said, "those are not West Texas but Dallas rates." What follows are mostly my own personal notes, suggestions and questions.
       1. I believe there is still a problem in club memberships.  It's hard to see just what would be the advantage to individual club members that would induce them to contribute to a group membership. It seems to me that the best way to solve this problem is to provide for a club membership that would entitle each member to a discount on other benefits of being a Dark Skies Fellow. For example, assume a club of 100 and a basic club membership fee of $10 per member. This would entitle each member to:

• a membership card
• free admission for 2 to a McDonald tour and public star party
• members only online newsletter and website
• a dark skies bumper sticker (not in original proposal)

• a "Planetary Membership" card 
• 1 year star date subscription
• 2 free admissions for 2 to a McDonald tour and public star party
• a 10% discount on gift items purchased at the McDVC gift shop
• ability to access all higher level memberships at a 10% discount.

       2. Just what proportions of time on the 36 and 82 as well as TQ (Temporary Quarter) use might be allotted to the various activities and programs -- including research, Elderhostel, advanced observing, 5 day non-Elderhostel and current occasional "open" public viewing sessions?  Without some kind of chart showing the allocation of time on scopes and TQ to each of these activities, it is hard to determine whether or not the scheme as a whole would result in facilities overload and thus not be practical.
       3. The brochure refers to "free" admission to the McDVC. Is this a change from current policy? As we understand it, admission to the visitors center is now free so long as one does not want a guided tour, solar viewing  or star party.  Certainly, admission to the gift shop should be free since that is the best source of income.
       4. Are the membership levels as set forth in the brochure intended to be in part tax deductible? If so, how much at each level?
       5. At the beginning of the presentation at McDonald, very brief reference was made to memberships other than the Dark Skies fellows. How do these fit in?  For example, would there be any  benefits to joining the "Orion" club or group or would the whole amount be a contribution? If the amounts paid are substantial, should the contributors not be entitled to some benefits even if they are not amateur astronomers?  If so, should an allowance for this benefit use be made in allocating scope time and, perhaps, TQ?
       6. With public star parties five nights a week, there is apt to be a greater demand for volunteer helpers, a demand normally met by local amateurs, including members of the Big Bend Astronomical Society. Will the proposed program allow any opportunity for special events -- especially scope time -- for these helpers?

If we have not yet received your dues, then please use the convenient envelope addressed to our treasurer that is included with this copy of your Newsletter.

       Barbara and I were clouded out for the Leonids, but a lot of people saw a great show. Here are some accounts I have compiled and edited from some of our members and some other folks around the country:
       Dale Evans, Valentine. Midnight, the sky was crystal clear horizon to horizon. 2 AM, the shower starts and by 3 it's going good. I go inside to wake up Mable and we watch a big fog bank blow in from the south. By 3:30 we could see only the very brightest streaks. We jumped into the car and drove to Van Horn trying to get out of it.  Alas, a trip wasted.
       Bernie & Petei Zelazny, Alpine. Most of the meteors were short ones, but at 4:39 a pretty impressive one flashed across the SE section of the sky globe. There were so many it was impossible to keep a count, but it seemed like the estimate of 4,000+ an hour was pretty close, with many "bursts" of 5 or 6 appearing at once and covering a broad section of the sky.
       The best series of meteors from my viewpoint occurred between 4:50 and 5:05, with several impressive ones mixed in with a bunch of lesser meteors. However, nothin' was as impressive as the giant fireball that skipped over my head like a rock in and out of the water during the 1998 Leonids shower. That one lit up the whole area...the second most impressive meteor/meteorite I've seen in my entire life.
       Shannon Rudine, McDonald. Great show this am. The storm was brief but the shower was intense. By about 4:15-4:30 I was estimating via 1-2 minute counts, 1100 meteors/hr (1000/hr is categorized as a true storm). By 6 am the numbers had dropped to about 600 per hour. Saw a great number of fireballs, with many as bright as Jupiter but a few nearly as bright as the moon. A few bolides left visible trains that persisted for 5-15 minutes.
       Anthony Arrigo, Utah. By 9:00 pm we were into 20-30 meteors/hour, rising steadily till around 3:00am. We were surely pushing 1000 per hour at the peak. All directions saw multiple meteors. I've never seen anything like it. Wow!
       Steve Davis, Upstate New York. Easily more than 100/hr...all over the place in multiples. Difficult to decide on which way to look. Had 2 cameras going at the same time. Can't get cold when busy. 
       William Hand, South Texas. The peak time for me was about 4:15 - 5:00. I counted (or tried to) well over a thousand meteors. I saw 4 true bolides (2 fragmented) and numerous "flashbulb" type near the horizon.
       Mel Bartels, Central Oregon Cascades. Wow - Leonids beyond words! Up to six meteors visible at any one time, on average a meteor per second; half were magnitude zero or brighter. Did not matter which direction one faced, meteors were dropping across the sky. Every several minutes a Leonid would explode with a flash, as if someone with a flash camera were taking pictures a few feet away. Meteors were very fast, with blue tails, a couple of tails lasting up to 30 minutes before disappearing. A few meteors burst, causing sideways fragments to be cast off at 90 degrees. Display started at 11pm Pacific Standard Time, held maximum activity from 1 am to 3:30am PST.
       John Wagoner, Sky & Telescope. The best meteor shower in 35 years sent bright shooting stars streaking through the sky before dawn Sunday morning for observers throughout the Americas, the Pacific, and the Far East. Preliminary reports paint a picture of the much-anticipated 2001 Leonid shower matching predictions fairly closely.
       In eastern North America, skywatchers under dark skies before dawn counted several hundred meteors per hour -- an average of one every 5 or 10 seconds, with occasional spectacular bursts. A crowd of Sky & Telescope staffers at a lakeshore in western saw blue, green, and red fireballs radiating from the cutting edge of the Sickle of Leo, occasionally lighting the ground with flashes like distant heat lightning.
       Indeed, observers farther west reported an even more spectacular show a little later. In Kentucky, David Phillips described seeing roughly a meteor per second under an extremely dark sky. Much of the Midwest was cloudy, but Westerners apparently had the best of it. The peak probably came around 11:00 UT, according to Joe Rao, observing with a crowd of 60 at the Skywatcher's Inn in Arizona. "It was the most amazing shower I've seen in over 35 years of watching the sky," Rao said.
       Observing from Fremont Peak, California, Landon Curt Noll observed several bursts of activity including a count of more than 1,500 meteors during a 1-hour interval beginning at 10:45 UT, with more than 600 of those appeared in the 15 minutes beginning at 11:00.
       Rates seemed to decline somewhat after about 11:15 UT, but farther west in Hawaii, Stephen J. O'Meara and P. K. Chen were more than satisfied as the radiant rose high in the sky from about 12:00 to 16:00 UT. "We had an absolutely stunning, remarkable, brilliant and continuous display of Leonids," writes O'Meara. "The best activity I have ever seen."
       The biggest peak was predicted to arrive around 18:00 UT, when Australia and the Far East would be turned into view. Rates did surge again around this time, but judging from early reports, this second peak was only comparable to the first. According to early reports from the International Meteor Organization, "The strongest peak observed [was] around 18:20 UT.... 
       The rates during this peak reached more then 2800 meteors per hour." Observing from Alice Springs, Australia, Bradley Schaefer reported a personal meteor count that peaked with 660 meteors seen during a 15-minute interval. "They were fast," he writes, "and the bright ones were visible in various colors, primarily red, green, and yellow."

       NASA, November 26, 2001. All at once there was a flash of light and a strange crackling noise. Puzzled sky watchers looked at one another...and confessed, "Yes, I heard it, too." Hearing meteors? It could happen -- and indeed it did, plenty of times during this month's Leonid meteor storm.
       Karen Newcombe, a Leonid watcher from San Francisco was one of many who reported meteor sounds to Science@NASA on Nov. 18th. "Several times when a Leonid with a persistent debris train flew directly overhead, I heard a faint fizzing noise [instantly]." There was no delay between the sight and the sound. "How is that possible when the meteor was so many miles above my head?" she wondered. 
       The same question bedeviled Edmund Halley in 1719. He collected accounts of a widely-observed fireball over England. Many witnesses, wrote Halley, "[heard] it hiss as it went along, as if it had been very near at hand." Yet his own research proved the meteor was at least "60 English miles" high. Sound takes about five minutes to travel such a distance, while light can do it in a fraction of a millisecond. Halley could think of no way for sky watchers to simultaneously hear and see the meteor. Baffled, he finally dismissed the reports as "pure fantasy" -- a view that held sway for centuries. However, the sounds are now called "electrophonic meteor sounds," resulting from the effects of very low frequency radio waves.