Leonid meteor shower

So who's been up watching the Leonids?

Here on the US west coast, it's about 3:30 am and they have been spectacular for about the last two hours. A few were lighting up the whole sky and casting shadows, leaving behind trails that lingered visibly in atmosphere, slowly bending and dissipating in the wind.

This is the first time I've witnessed anything like it. I'm used to seeing about one or two shooting stars in an hour. Tonight, I'm seeing about ten per minute, sometimes several happening simultaneously.

It's very striking how they all seem to be radiating outward from the same point in space (the constellation Leo, I think, hence the name).

I also took the opportunity to use the 'scope to peek at Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn's at a pretty spectacular angle, and Jupiter was clear as a bell, I could see a couple of cloud stripes even with my little 4" scope.

/me wishes for a scope with an auto-tracking motor...

Greetings!

I was watching for a little bit this morning, about 5:00am EST. Very nice! Unfortunately, there is really too much ambient light (light pollution) where I am to see as much as you could out there. Still, even with that, there were a few really nice displays!!!

Hmmmm. I think I detect a meteor FAQ opportunity!

Just got back from a couple hours lying on my back next to a forest service road up by Snoqualmie Pass. Fantastic. I am so glad we decided to stay up and go for a spin. While a lot of the meteors seemed to come in from the northeast, the angles were all over the place. Some of the coolest ones were the rare birds that actually came right at us -- provided this sparkly starburst type of effect. Couldn't have had better weather (for once). You could still see quite a few as we got back into town even with all of the ambient light

We actually had given up on watching the Leonids because at bedtime, there were clouds and fog socking us in. I assumed it would be that way all night. But at about 2am PST, my wife got up to go to the bathroom, and it woke me up. I looked at the clock and thought, what the heck, I'll go check. I poked my head out the door to see a perfectly clear sky and a double-meteor appeared almost immediately. So I came back in and told Jenny to wake the kid.

I am disappointed.. I waited all week for the shower to get here only to wake and find cloud cover. I could not see a thing! Oh well, I guess I will have to wait for the next once in a lifetime meteor shower.

Me too, here in dallas its been cloudy pretty much all week.

So my trip to New England for the weekend was a blessing. Clear skies, but really damn cold for this Texas boy. Even though there was plenty of light pollution, I still saw more meteors that night than in my entire life. And I missed the 10 inches of rain here in Austin.

The most difficult part is explaining to folks that the meteors didn't "start at 3AM" they would be peaking about then, but you could see them for a week or two, just nowhere near as intense as that morning. Those damn Yankees think it's like a fireworks show or something...

Actually, the Leonids are just for the one day.

Sure you can see meteors all the time, the reason they peak on a particular day in November is because we pass through the flight path of comet Temple-Tuttle, which essentially leaves a "slime trail" behind it.

If you looked at our orbit edge-on, you'd see that Temple-Tuttle's path is irregular and doesn't intersect our orbit perfectly every time. It's kind of like a shotgun blast. Some years we hit one of the "pellets" and some years we don't. They just predicted (accurately) that this November 18th would be better than most:



More information here.

Oh geez, uh maybe I read that about some other meteor shower. Is there another that lasts for a few days maybe? I feel like such an idiot... I blame it on the alcohol...

Yes, there are other meteor showers, some lasting more than a day. There is a calendar here.

The chart for November on that page lists Leonids duration as Nov 14-20, peak activity on the 18th... See why I get sooo confused???

Great website, BTW, I spend many hours in the dark fishing lakes in the middle of nowhere so light pollution is non-existant a lot. I almost always
see shooting stars/meteors, now I have a wonderful reference, thanks Tony!

The chart for November on that page lists Leonids duration as Nov 14-20, peak activity on the 18th... See why I get sooo confused???

Yes, I see your point. When you look at the graphical charts, though, you can see why they list it that way. Depending on the year, we could hit a given cloud on different dates. They say that forecasting the Leonid activity is still a pretty young science. This year, it was basically the one night, and that was it.

It still sucked for me.. I got my butt out of bed and went outside only to see the same cloud cover that has been covering us all week (Dallas TX) .. so just like my millenium celebration (Y2K - I work in the computer field), it will have to wait until next time.

I didn't want to see it anyways (sour grapes)