Sky spectacle: The Leonid meteor shower is coming
Be sure to keep an eye to the sky this week: The Leonid meteor shower, an annual mid-November treat, will soar across the night sky Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Leonids appear to be coming from the constellation Leo the Lion (hence their name) in the east, but they should be visible all the way across the sky.
Estimates range from seeing a few meteors up to dozens per hour at the peak, Astronomy magazine reports. Leonids are rather speedy, striking Earth’s atmosphere at a whopping 158,000 mph, the fastest of any meteor shower.
As with most meteor showers, the best time to watch the Leonids is usually between the hours of midnight and dawn, according to earthsky.org. Some good news from NASA: The waning crescent moon should leave skies dark enough for a decent show.
The expected peak mornings are Nov. 17 and 18. (That’s the mornings — not the evenings — of the 17th and 18th.)
If you can only head out after sunset, face east and look one-third to one-half of the way up in the sky, Astronomy magazine suggests. Between moonset (10 p.m.) and about 2 a.m., look overhead. And after 2 a.m., aim your gaze halfway up in the western sky.
To see the most meteors, try to find a truly dark place well away from city lights. And give it time. Though the eye adapts to the dark within 10 minutes, a full switch to night vision can take up to 45 minutes, so the falling stars will become brighter and more visible as the night wears on.
The meteors are actually tiny pea- and sand-sized bits of dust and debris crumbling off the Tempel-Tuttle comet as it swings by the Earth. (Earth’s orbit takes it straight through the debris trail.) The dust and debris ignites when it hits our atmosphere.
As for the weather, folks in the southwestern will likely have the best view while clouds from a large, sprawling storm will likely obscure the show in much of the central and northwestern U.S., according to AccuWeather.
Much of the East Coast should have "fair" visibility for the meteor shower.