Radar-optical leonids

We present joint optical-radar observations of meteors collected near the peak of the leonid activity in 2002. We show four examples of joint detections with a large, phased array L-band radar and with intensified video cameras. The general characteristic of the radar-detected optical meteors is that they show the radar detection below the 5 termination of the optical meteor. Therefore, at least some radar events associated with meteor activity are neither head echoes nor trail echoes, but probably indicate the formation of " charged clouds " after the visual meteor is extinguished.