Leonid meteor shower supposed to peak tonight

Tobra · Tobra's Garage

Just like it says, a few hours before dawn, for you early risers. Have to go cut off half a foot tonight at 2100, so may have to sleep in until 0600 tomorrow.

Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks Wednesday, November 17, 2010 | StarDate Online

Zeke · 11-16-2010, 03:39 PM

Crap. We had the clearest weather of the entire year for 3 days until last night when the fog came back. Still, when I looked up for stars 2 night ago, I could see about 3. Yet I could see definition of the local mountains during the day that are usually "not there."

Must have been light pollution at night.

A930Rocket · 11-16-2010, 03:57 PM

I'll be taking my son to swim practice at 4am, so I'll give it a look while he's in there for 2 hours. Hopefully the weather will be clear and I'll find it.

onlycafe · 11-16-2010, 04:18 PM

naturally.......raining here in the northeast! grrrrrrr.

trekkor · 11-16-2010, 04:26 PM

Should be clear skies tonight/morning.

I want to watch.

KT

Laneco · 11-16-2010, 04:34 PM

Oh cool! The Leonids are my favorite ones. Not a super-regular watcher, but when I'm "reminded" they're here, I make a point of enjoying them. I always have better luck watching the Leonids than, say, the Perseids. Always manage to find cloud cover for the Perseids.

I think I'll go for a real, real early bike ride tomorrow morning!

angela

id10t · 11-16-2010, 05:03 PM

which direction do we look? I know near leo, but darn if i know where to find leo

TimT · 11-16-2010, 05:27 PM

Use to find constellations etc

Stellarium from your pc,

if you have a smart phone, Google Sky

masraum · 11-16-2010, 05:43 PM

Quote:

which direction do we look? I know near leo, but darn if i know where to find leo

Stellarium is a fantastic piece of software. You have to enter your approximate location for it to work correctly.

Most folks can find Orion. Orion will be somewhere between the middle of the sky and the western horizon. Orion is right on the celestial equator. The father north you are the more it'll be in the southern sky. Once you've found Orion, Leo will be following it. Leo will have risen in the east. Its a fairly bright rectangle with a triangle on one end.the triangle will be pointing towards the eastern horizon.

Hugh R · 11-16-2010, 06:20 PM

I'm in LA, don't think I'll bother.

masraum · 11-16-2010, 07:02 PM

This may be a better way to find Leo (early this/tomorrow morning).

Tobra · Tobra's Garage

Foggy with some high clouds

masraum · 11-17-2010, 08:20 AM

I had my alarm set for early this morning for about 5 minutes last night. Then I realized that I wouldn't actually go outside at 4:30 and 45°, so I changed it.

trekkor · 11-17-2010, 08:42 AM

I went to look.
The sky was clear, but my neighbor ( to the north-east ) has one of those 'mini-sun' security lights.

...Back to bed.

KT

onlycafe · 11-17-2010, 09:52 AM

did anybody get a good squint at this?
rained all last night here in cny.

Laneco · 11-17-2010, 12:13 PM

No. I got up early to ride and there was freezing fog. Could hardly see streetlights let alone anything in the sky. Dang.

angela

A930Rocket · 11-17-2010, 05:37 PM

I only saw one at about 4:30. Kinda disapponted, but I was up any way.

masraum · 11-17-2010, 06:27 PM

I might try this morning.

masraum · 11-18-2010, 03:46 AM

Well I still didn't get up early, but I went out at six when I let the dogs out. I was out for about 3 minutes and saw a couple if meteors. I wish I had the will power to get up at 4:30. At six leo is directly overhead which is hard in the neck.

kach22i · kach22i's Garage

My wife and I saw it this morning, set the alarm for 4:20 AM, made coffee, threw on some clothes and headed west on I-94 to get around the cloud cover we saw on radar.

We stopped at three farmers fields at random near the Manchester and Grass lake area which is between Ann Arbor and Jackson.

The first couple of stops we just saw the typical shooting stars thing, light cloud cover allowed only the brightest stars and Venus to shine. At the last stop there was a big hole in the thin cloud cover, we could feel the cold air dropping through it as the wind picked up (like an open window).

Then we saw a few bright flashes like thermonuclear weapons exploding in space. A few long steaks across the sky which almost seemed to change speed and direction. Suddenly we saw a very clear and not as fast as the typical blink of an eye streak go by. It was almost Hale-Bopp comet like, cartoon like with what looked liked a five point star at the head and a trailing edge tail which lasted several moments.

It was awesome.