The Leonid shower is notorious – outrageous – flamboyant – incomparable – erratic – bipolar.
The radiant is of the Leonids rising around midnight, The radiant is the point or small area from which meteors seem to fly out, though they may flare in any part of the sky. They are actually traveling parallel to each other. The Leonid radiant is just north of “Earth’s direction of travel.”
How many might you see? The ZHR, zenithal hourly rate, the number a single alert observer might count in an hour in ideal conditions and in a place where the meteors are radiating from straight overhead – may be 15. Real counts are likely to be less than the ZHR. A moderate-to-low number and a very uncertain one. For the Leonids have produced the greatest storms in history. On 1833 November 13 they caused a terror that the sky was falling, and on 1966 Nov. 17 they were estimated as 144,000 per hour. Other times the Lion sulks.
The theoretical peak time for the shower, based on what is called the solar longitude – a measure of the position in Earth’s orbit where the meteor stream crosses – is Nov. 17 at 16.5h Universal Time. That would be 11:30 AM in America’s Eastern time zone, 10:30 in the Central zone, and so on. Peak time is a fairly uncertain matter, even for relatively condensed meteor streams.
Anyway, it should be after dawn for the western hemisphere, so the nearest to it we can get is the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 17. And the hours after midnight are typically best for any meteor-watching, because the morning side of Earth is the front side, and we are meeting the meteors head on: they are likely to be more numerous – and swifter and brighter.
This is extremely so for the Leonids, because they come from almost dead ahead.
A view of Earth from ecliptic north, that is, from north of its orbital plane. The broad arrow shows the adcance of Earth in one minute. The Leonids hit Earth from slightly north of ahead. The Moon is overhead around sunset.
The date is favorable this year in that it is two days after First Quarter Moon, so that the Moon will have set at or soon after midnight.
The Leonids sometimes roar like a lion, but most often don’t. That’s as good an excuse as any to quote from Midsummer Night’s Dream.
BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again. Let him roar again.
QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek. And that were enough to hang us all.
ALL. That would hang us, every mother’s son.
BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us. But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.
Shakespeare perhaps mocked some politician as vain and inconsistent as Bottom the Weaver.
By the way, Wordsworth scholar Geoffrey Jackson has given an answer (https://www.universalworkshop.com/2018/11/06/the-burning-of-the-barrels/, comments) to my question about whether Coleridge ever mentioned the Burning of the Barrels, a custom dating from the seventeenth century in his natal town of Ottery St. Mary. Though, as Geoffrey points out, Coleridge in the Novembers of his childhood would have been away at Christ’s Hospital school in London, one still might expect him to know of the fiery scenes he was missing. We were told in Ottery that schoolchildren practise carrying the barrels.
Hello Guy,
The 1999 Storm in my area was 2400 to 3600 ZHR. I began observing at 0400, and I woke up my OL (my cultural term) to verify what was happening. At 0630 EST (United States) I drove west to Erie PA USA, about 20 minutes from my home, and continued to observe the storm, which had lessened to about ZHR 600 to 800. As the Sun started to rise, I continued to see a few falling. That observation continues to be the apex of my amateur astronomy life. The Astronomical Calendar was of great assistance to me that year. I hope that someday, soon, you’ll be able to Kindle it.
Yours, Joseph
The sky graphic here is, as it has been for some time, too small to read. This needs to be corrected!
The graphics start as large and precise diagrams, but I know of no way to get them into the blog post except converting them to a different format (JPG). This however can probably be enlarged on your monitor. What works on mine is to double-click on the picture; a drop-down list appears; the first optin is “View image”; when you click that, a larger image appears, and a magnifying-glass tool which can enlarge it further/
Hello Greg,
Just put the image on your desktop and open and enlarge x 2. X 3 and the JPG image starts to break down a little but is still readable. I’m doing this on a Crapple MacAir.
Joseph
For many years I patiently waited for 1999. You hyped the return of comet Temple-Tuttle every year in your Astro Calendar: “There may be another great storm on 1999 Nov. 18, the year after the comet’s next return.” I looked forward to the storm for a long time, and it did not disappoint. It was the only meteor storm I’d ever seen. There was one at least every 3 seconds, sometimes 5 or more at once. There were lots of trains too.
My 3 favorite astronomical events were:
1) Comet Hyahutake in 1996 (its tail spanned half the sky)
2) Total solar eclipse of 2017
3) Leonid storm (probably 1999)
Sadly, no meteors for me, nor any chance to see Juno at her perihelic opposition. Northern California is under an apocalyptic pall of smoke from the deadly Camp fire.
Halo Anthony,
Please give it time and you’ll once again be able to see Juno.
Those fire SIGNS really roar!
Have sent endless Love for my family in Cali. 2 are with CALFIRE they’re on it best humans can do.
BTW: I’ve sent a message to the Mother of all Mothers pleading with her drop BLANKETS OF SNOW 3 days ago.
So she sent it to the Sahara desert instead.
I do recall either in March or May of 1991 ICE dropped on top of Los Vegas considers her the MIRACLE THAT NEVER CEASES
Take care in being Smartly Safe~
Thank you for your good wishes.
On November 17, 1966 (my 13th birthday) I convinced my Dad and younger brother to go out at midnight to see the meteors. I do not recall us seeing even one and back to bed we went. Sitting in the auditorium before school later that morning, there was a buzz amongst my more rural friends about the extraordinary light show they had witnessed just a short while earlier while out doing their chores. 1999, while impressive was no satisfying and I am doing all I can to make it to 2033/34. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2007JIMO…35….5M
Halo BigJoe,
There were 3 friends.
Ask your self these questions:
1. Did they live in the exact location as you were in 1999?
2. Did you tell them about it first?
I have a huge sense that they joking with you and I’m so with you on doing all we can to make it to 2033/34…
Smiles of endless appreciation always