In the Dutch school system every student is obligated to execute some kind of research project for a special class that he or she takes at school. This research project is part of the exams.

During the last Leonids storm in 2001, my attention was drawn to the observations that were performed by a group of scientists working at ESTEC, the scientific establishment of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Noordwijk The Netherlands. I read more about their ideas and became curious whether I could use these types of observations for my school project. After having read the back-ground info about their observations (obs), and having discussed the idea with my teacher, I decided that I wanted to use this observation technique for my school project.

I'm currently busy with the observations for the Leonids of 2002. My primary research goals is to learn more about the velocities of meteors, when observed with commercial HF-radio. First I want to calculate the velocity of meteors along the line of sight (the technique that I use only allows that), and eventually, when I have usefull observations, I want to try to calculate the real velocity of a meteor. The last mentioned goal will require at least two observation station, this can be achieved by combining the observations made at ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, an the ones made by myself in Maarssen.

Sebastiaan John de Vet

Niftarlake College, Maarssen
Voluntary employee of the Museum Observatory Sonnenborgh, Utrecht, The Netherlands