There are many meteor showers throughout the year, but the Perseids in August, the Leonids in November, and the Geminids in December are predictably the best from year to year.
This year — if the weather is favorable — we should have a good Leonid shower, which is predicted to be best after midnight on Tuesday when the moon is a thin crescent that does not rise until 3:10 a.m.
The Leonids are bits of debris from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which was discovered independently by Ernst Tempel (1821-1889) and Horace Parnell Tuttle (1839-1923) on Jan. 6, 1866.
This comet is a periodic comet — hence the “P” in its name — and it returns to the inner Solar System every 33 years. It is not a particularly large or bright comet, but its debris gives a usually good meteor shower every year and a spectacular meteor shower from time to time.
During a meteor shower, most of the meteors appear to come from a point in the sky. This point or “radiant” is in the constellation for which the shower is named. The Leonids are named for Leo the Lion. The front part of Leo is just above the eastern horizon at 1 a.m., and the entire constellation is up by 2 a.m.
Even though the Leonids radiate from Leo, they can be seen all over the sky, and it is not necessary to look at Leo to see lots of meteors. Get out a good lawn chair, face it toward the east, bundle up well, lean back and enjoy the show.
