2015 Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks Before Dawn Between Nov. 17 and 18

Summary: The 2015 Leonid meteor shower peaks before dawn between Nov. 17 and 18, midway through their annual Nov. 13 to 21 occurrences.

Leonid meteor streaks across sky, Montauk Point, Long Island, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012: Tushar N. Dadarwala, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

The 2015 Leonid meteor shower peaks in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Nov. 17, and Wednesday, Nov. 18, midway through the meteor shower’s annual occurrence for Earthlings from Nov. 13 to Nov. 21.

The Leonids offer the best viewing opportunities in the early morning hours after midnight and before dawn. Viewers in the Northern Hemisphere should scan the eastern skies while those in the Southern Hemisphere should look northeasterly.

The moon cooperates with the shower by setting well before midnight. Unfortunately for Leonid gazers in the United States, both mornings are expected to have cloud-covered skies throughout most of the Lower 48. Clear skies are forecast by the National Digital Forecast Database of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for New England and for the Southwest, from Texas westward through California.

The setting for the Leonids is the constellation of Leo the Lion, which appears as the meteor shower’s radiant, the point in the sky from which the shooting stars radiate. Although not actually originating in Leo, the Leonids’ meteors seem to shoot out from near Algieba, known in Latin as Juba and officially named as Gamma Leonis, one of the stars in the Sickle, an asterism, or pattern of stars, forming the constellation’s mane and shoulders. For modern viewers unfamiliar with the asterism’s prehistoric, hand-held agricultural tool namesake, the Sickle traces a backward question mark.

Meteor showers tend to take their names from their radiants even though their parent bodies are comets. The Leonid meteor shower represents debris cast off by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, known officially as 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. As a periodic, or short period, comet, 55P completes its orbit around the sun in less than 200 years. Comet Tempel-Tuttle’s orbital period takes 33 years.

If sky cover cooperates, a late evening show featuring the moon sets the stage for sky gazing enjoyment by allowing the eyes to adjust to the play of light and darkness. The Leonids’ moon in November 2015 appears in partially illuminated phases as waxing crescent, at 32 percent visibility, on Nov. 17, and as first quarter, at 42 percent visibility, on Nov. 18.

As Leo and the Leonids rise in the sky, a trio of planets emerge in the wake of the meteor shower. Jupiter, Mars, and Venus all journey upward in the sky, providing bright company for the Leonids.

The Leonids may not present their splashiest show in 2015, but their speedy shooting flares are, nevertheless, worth the watch.

composite of Leonid meteor images recorded by CCD camera onboard MSX (Midcourse Space Experiment) satellite during 1997 Leonid shower: P.Jenniskens/NASA-ARC, via NASA Leonids

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Leonid meteor streaks across sky, Montauk Point, Long Island, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012: Tushar N. Dadarwala, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonid_Streak.jpg

composite of Leonid meteor images recorded by CCD camera onboard MSX (Midcourse Space Experiment) satellite during 1997 Leonid shower: P.Jenniskens/NASA-ARC, via NASA Leonids @ http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/leonidnews25.html

For further information:

Byrd, Deborah. "Leonid Meteors Midnight to Dawn November 18." EarthSky > Tonight. Nov. 17, 2015.
Available @ http://earthsky.org/?p=2872

Kronk, Gary W. Meteor Showers: An Annotated Catalogue. The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series. 2nd ed. New York: Springer Science + Business Media, 2014.

Peek, Katie. "Leonid Meteor Shower: When, Where, and How to Watch."
Available via MSN @ http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/leonid-meteor-shower-when-where-and-how-to-watch/ar-BBn4JiM?ocid=ansmsnweather11