Grey skies blocked much of the view for islanders hoping to watch Sunday morning's predicted Leonid meteor shower spectacular.

But Edward McGonagle of the Astronomical Society of Bermuda said it was worth the vigil, even if he did knock off for a couple of hours of sleep during his vigil which began after midnight. He said: "I was sitting for half an hour when two brilliant blue meteors streaked across the sky with long trails."

But he said heavy cloud cover meant only about ten percent of the sky could be seen, meaning that he saw only about 40 rather than the possible 400 predicted to be visible from Bermuda.

He said: "I was hoping for a tremendous display but it was still worth it. I saw two together as if they were racing. Some were short in shape, some were longer with tails."

Mr. McGonagle watched the show without a telescope because the meteors were so fast moving they would be gone by the time the instrument was lined up. The Leonid meteor shower occurs every year around November 17 or 18 and produces about ten shooting stars per hour that can enter the Earth's atmosphere with speeds of up to 42 miles per second.

The meteor shower is a product of the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The meteors are the debris which burns off of the comet when it passes close to the sun. Tempel-Tuttle has a 33-year orbit and each time it comes back to the sun it loses more of its body which streams out in clumps behind it, something it has been doing for the past 1,100 years.