Patterico's Pontifications

11/16/2009

Leonid Meteor Shower

Filed under: General — DRJ @ 8:27 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Leonid meteor shower is tonight:

“The annual Leonid meteor shower will make its one-night appearance over North America tonight. Viewing conditions should be excellent because the peak will occur after midnight, when the lights of metropolitan areas will be at their dimmest.

Further, the presence of a new moon will make it much easier to see the white streaks across the sky.”

There’s more detail on the Leonids here and here, or intrepid night owls can just go wing it.

— DRJ

4 Responses to “Leonid Meteor Shower”

  1. Thanks for the reminder, but I must pass. Here in the Great North West, the only showers we’ll see are wet ones. Its been a hard rain for two days.

    gnholb (710dbc)

  2. It’s clear and cold where I live, and there are dozens of slow-motion shooting stars directly overhead. Beautiful.

    DRJ (dee47d)

  3. The ‘new moon’ will not enhance viewing conditions because of the light that it provides. Rather, a new moon is the next best thing to no moon at all, and so its light will not obscure the faint light of the meteors.

    dchamil (ca7622)

  4. DRJ- Nature didn’t disappoint. Good show all around for the families in the neighborhood, especially the kids.

    Recommend this site for other interesting sightings at night:

    http://heavens-above.com/

    It’s a useful for kids and adults alike. A while back the kids caught sight of the space shuttle and the space station a few miles apart as the two bright dots full of people zipping along at dusk from horizon to horizon.

    Another image that puts time and space into perspective for those of us with longer memories is this latest LRO image of Apollo 11’s ‘Tranquility Base’ released last week:

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc_200911109_apollo11.html

    If you look at it, keep in mind for scale that the footpads of the lunar module are about 3 feet wide.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)


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