Optical observations were also attempted at Cloudcroft, New Mexico, but were prohibited by clouds. Surprisingly, the atmospheric conditions at JSC were fairly good. Some clouds were present each night, but after the clouds moved out the atmospheric clarity was very good for Houston. The LLTV was oriented to observe the same volume of space as the radars in an attempt to obtain simultaneous radar and LLTV observations of the same meteors.
Analysis is underway to verify that both systems observed the same meteors.
Radar observations at JSC were obtained in the standard meteor survey mode and also at vertical incidence for head echo studies. Many hours of radar observations were obtained from both the H frame radar and from the new five antenna interferometer radar. The H frame was used as the illuminator for both systems. The five antenna interferometer will be used to get better position accuracy for the meteors. This will allow unambiguous determination of whether or not a given meteor is a Leonid and will also allow an off-axis correction to be made for antenna gain, so that a more accurate meteor size can be estimated.