The Leonids promise to dazzle this year

How finest to look at

The bathe’s radiant (for the star chart, see Sky This Month on web page 29) doesn’t rise till native midnight and shall be highest out of your location solely earlier than daybreak. And fortuitously, pre-dawn viewing instances are one of the best for meteor observing as a result of that’s when your observing web site begins to swing headlong into the particles stream. So one of the best ways to strategy this 12 months’s Leonid bathe is to arrange for a five-day, early-morning vigil Nov. 16–21.

Think about Earth as a automotive rushing down the freeway. Simply as bugs extra regularly splatter onto the entrance windshield than the rear windshield, so too will Leonid meteors seem to smash extra regularly into Earth’s ambiance as our planet races ahead into the comet’s particles stream.

The place do you have to look? Whereas the paths of bathe meteors could be traced again to some extent within the Sickle of Leo, most seem as streaks of sunshine far away from that radiant. Bathe meteors close to or on the radiant could seem as a brief, swift flash or a degree supply that swells. Meteors farther from the radiant will take the type of longer streaks of sunshine. Each are exceptional, so break up your time between wanting on the radiant and barely away.

Within the latter case, it’s finest to focus your consideration on an space some 20° to 40° (two to 4 fist-widths) away from the radiant and about midway up the sky, as you’ll cowl extra space. The identical recommendation typically applies for these desirous to picture the occasion.

As a basic rule, the farther a meteor is from the radiant, the longer its path. It’s necessary to know the place the bathe radiant lies, nonetheless, as you will want to hint the meteor’s path again to verify any meteor you see just isn’t sporadic — a rogue meteor whose path can’t be traced again to a selected supply.

A nighttime deal with

I can’t expound sufficient on why these shows are price your whereas. If Nov. 19 produces something in any respect just like the show I noticed on the morning of Nov. 16, 1999, it shouldn’t be missed.

On that morning, observers at some fortunate areas throughout the globe noticed a splendid bathe of about 250 fireballs per hour fall from the heavens. And whereas this was not a storm, the grandeur and magnitude of the meteors shall be perpetually etched on my thoughts — particularly contemplating {that a} bizarre flashing by means of my bed room window woke me up that evening. As soon as outdoors, I noticed 30 dazzling fireballs and 4 different meteors fall from the Sickle of Leo over 45 minutes.

Even when numbers like that don’t materialize this 12 months, on condition that the Leonids are already famous for his or her brilliance, any improve in brightness or quantity shall be a welcome sight come Nov. 19.

In the end, though we don’t know if any of the 2022 Leonid occasions will visually shock and awe, it’s finest to be ready for regardless of the bathe tosses our approach. As all the time, with meteor observing, count on the surprising!