Leonid Meteor Shower Observation Tips

mao che minh writes "For those of us around the world planning on stepping out and witnessing the Leonid meteor showers next week (November 19th), NASA is running an article that will help you maximize your meteor shower viewing enjoyment, straight from the experts' mouths."

Comments

my tips

[Brian Boitano]

"make sure you are looking at the sky"

Re:my tips

[ComaVN]

Don't forget to wait until it's dark

What age?

[HiQ]

... to the constellation Leo the Lion
Be sure to watch out for Harry the Horse, Donald the Duck, Cleo the Camel and Tux the Penguin while sipping your cocoa!

Attack

[BlackHawk-666]

Chant the mantra - "this is not a preliminary missile attack".

Whoa, time to go to bed.

[supun]

I thought the title said "Leonard Nimoy Shower Observation Tips" I could feel my eyes trying to rip themselves from my sockets. Whew, thank god for second glances.

Light Pollution

[Big Mark]

Quote:

""Try to get away from city lights," he suggests. "The darker the sky, the more meteors you'll see."

Of course, if you live anywhere near a city your view will be obscured by that pleasant glow of street lamps. You'll HAVE to make a trip into the countryside to see anything but the brightest of meteors. I don't mind the Moon, as it's something to look at with binoculars during quiet bits of the storm.

If you're in the UK, The Campaign For Dark Skies is an interesting site about this problem.

This image, showing the entire world's wasted light, is also intriguing. Think of all the money wasted because idiot government officials allow such wastage.

Re:Light Pollution

[gleam]

A side note, the Leonid Shower this year is actually a Storm.

North America, at about 4:30AM of the 19th is about the peak time to watch for it.

I've seen estimates ranging from 2,000 to 7,000 hits per hour, and some have even said 10,000 or (during the really high times) up to 1,000 per minute.

So we aren't talking a little tiny shower this year.

Next time we'll have a storm like this will be in about 36 years, so you should want to check it out when you have the chance.

It's a shame the moon is nearly full that night, though.

Anyway, even if you can't go too far out of the city, just standing in the shadow of a tall building will give you a decent view, given the sheer magnitude of the storm.

-gleam

Re:Light Pollution

[simong_oz]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the same image as this (click image for full-res) which doesn't purport to show the 'wasted' light but is being used to study urbanisation?

not trolling - just had that awesome image on my desktop for ages and recognised it straight away!

Re:Light Pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

which doesn't purport to show the 'wasted' light

But it does show the wasted light. It's pretty easy to see that if you can see some light from Earth from space, it's being wasted. Unless your town provides streetlights for the express purpose of informing NASA how large it is?

Re:Light Pollution

[Kaz Riprock]

Next time...in about 36 years...

Unfortunately, the next time Temple-Tuttle (the source of the debris that we're watching) comes through in 30 or so years, it will not be passing close enough to leave a good amount of dust in our orbital path to create the kind of storm we're treated to this year. In fact the next pass after that still won't be close enough. It won't be until 2098 before it passes within .0062 AUs (close enough to get a storm in the following year or three).

All of this information and some great viewing suggestions and times are attainable in a really good article at Sky and Telescope.

Re:Light Pollution

[simong_oz]

But why is light at night automatically considered wasted? I would guess that a significant proportion of this light would come from home lighting (internal) and also car headlights which surely can't be considered wasted light? And is street lighting really a waste? Not only does it provide better driving conditions, but it also provides some measure of security.

I'm sure there is lots of light that doesn't need to be turned on at night (office buildings) and is wasted, and I imagine it probably correlates quite well with city size, but it's not all wasted.

Re:Light Pollution

[fyonn]

But why is light at night automatically considered wasted?

because if you can see the light from space then the light on the ground going up and thats not too much use to us eon the ground. the headlights of a car go sideways and there's no way you'd be able to see that from space (well, not at thos resolutions).

dave

Re:Light Pollution

[fjordboy]

I watched the meteor shower last year (which was incredible btw..) from the village of Trout Run, PA. Trout Run is in north central PA, about 20 miles from Williamsport (the closest town of any size). Trout Run has a gas station and a restaraunt that are open 24 hours a day, so they have normal "gas station" type lights. However, I was watching the meteor shower from camp susque which is about 4 miles down the valley, and it isn't a straight valley either...anyhow, we took a lot of pictures and in several of them, there is a SIGNIFICANT glow from the SINGLE gas station that is over 4 MILES away and partially obscured by mountains! It blew my mind..I didn't realize how bad light pollution was until then...I don't think there is any place in the US where you can get a truly dark sky.

Re:Light Pollution

[kingOFgEEEks]

Being a natitive to Roaring Branch, PA (if you've spent much time on Rt 14, you know where that is) I can vouch that there is quite a glow, but i believe the glow you were observing was not from the gas station, but instead from the city of Williamsport.

Trust me on this one... i was watching the Leonid shower last year as well. (unfortunately, i'm not much of a photographer.)

if you're a naitive to the area, or will be back, drop me a line cnj110.nospam@nospam.psu.nospam.edu

just remove the spam protection

Re:Light Pollution

[Uma Thurman]

A full cut-off streetlight can get away with half the wattage of a regular streetlight. The light fixtures themselves cost the same. The light level at the ground is the same.

You can identify a full cutoff light if you look at it directly from the side. When it's on, you won't be able to see the bulb.

Full cutoff lights are superior in that they don't produce glare. How much can a person see if a light is shining right in their eyes? Not a lot. Try it with a flashlight, and the hazard of shining a streetlight directly into a driver's eyes will become apparent. Harsh lights also create harsh shadows that are ironically EASIER for a prowler to hide in. A light going straight down doesn't cast a shadow, and minimizes those hiding places.

This situation is the ideal win-win situation. For everyone concerned, astronomers, drivers, taxpayers, bird lovers, and security conscious homeowners a full cutoff light is the best choice.

Re:Light Pollution

[kindbud]

This year's showers are attributed to the 1767 and 1866 apparitions of Temple-Tuttle. The proximity of the comet to Earth has little to do with the intensity of the storms. Earth intersects the heaviest portions of the dust streams around the same time that the comet nears perihelion. But the dust streams that the Earth actually intersects were laid down during perihelion passages that occurred decades or even centuries earlier.

So the distance of the comet from Earth at its next perihelion is no predictor of the intensity of the storms that may occur then.

Re:Light Pollution

[GigsVT]

Yeah, but the light is pretty useless unless it bounces off something, and into your eye. It's also going to bounce upward too. Unless you plan on building huge mirrors over every lighted highway, there is always going to be a lot of "waste"

Re:Light Pollution

[fjordboy]

I'm definitely a native of the area, and I have a whole lot of friends from the roaring branch area (the whole brannaka clan!). I can't believe someone from roaring branch reads slashdot *grin* Actually..the light was definitely from trout run, williamsport would have been more south, it was coming nearly directly from the west..right down the valley. If you look at the pictures, you can tell (ok, if you knew where the pictures were from, and what direction they were taken in you could tell). Williamsport would have been about 70 degrees to the left (south) in most of the pictures...though you can still definitely tell where williamsport is at night.

Re:Light Pollution

[mph]

There is a big difference between light that goes down from the fixture, reflects off the asphalt, and goes into space and light that goes directly from the fixture upward to space. It's the latter that is seriously wasteful, of course. Next time you're in an airplane at night, look down and you'll see examples of both kinds of fixtures--the good ones will just put a big, bright patch on the ground, and the bad ones will have a bright point source in the middle (i.e. the fixture) which is shining up at you.

Re:time

[billybob2001]

From the article (effort required to read)

No matter where you live, the hours between 11:00 p.m. on Monday and dawn on Tuesday are going to be the best for spotting Leonids."

It must be early...

[rocnar]

I originally read the title as "Leonard Maltin Shower Observation Tips". (cringe)

It's amazing the different ways your mind punishes you for the previous night's Guinness binge.

Again?

[kitsook]

Is it going to be another meteor shower in a scale that we are "not going to see for several hundred years"?

the 18th?

[trans_err]

Wasn't the shower supposed to be on the 18th when this originally posted or did one of NASA's borked computers realize the universe stopped again and they failed to tell us?

I am SO on to them.

Re:time

[tigress]

UT is Universal Time, aka GMT.

Re:time

[billybob2001]

...and as it's "No matter where you live" it might have been better to quote local time rather than UT, Internet time or Stardate.

All very good advice

[Dr Thrustgood]

But, alas, it misses out the vital ingredients:

1) Invite ladyfriend along
2) Bring blankets (can get a bit chilly)
3) Bring whisky (see 2)
4) Remember rehearsed "Isn't it beautiful, the depth, the colours. Alas, still not a match for your eyes" lines and other "romanticisms"
5) Bring protection (see 1 + 4 + 3)

You know it makes sense.

Re:All very good advice

[clickety6]

At last somebody has filled in the plan:

1) Invite friend to geek event

2) ???????

3) Get lucky!

Very Cool

[ArmedGeek]

I try to never miss one. Grab yer girl and go out and watch. In the past it's not failed to get me laid. Unfortunately, this year I'm going to be at work, so I'll get to watch, but without female companionship.
Everyone feel sorry for me now.

Three things

[Jack William Bell]

There are only three things you need to do for watching the Leonids (that is, other than having clear weather):

1. Coffee, hot and lots of it
2. Warm clothes and sleeping bags
3. Get the hell away from the city

Jack William Bell, long-time meteor freak

Re:time

[clickety6]

But if you want to know the peak time when thinsg should (hopefully) be at their best, try :

http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html

It's a java applet where yu can select your location and get the time of the peak (although for some reason there are no cities in Germany!)

You would think...

[croftj]

these things would happen in the middle of the day so we didn't have to wake up at three in the morning to see them!

Re:Guaranteed meteor shower viewing enjoyment

[buzban]

yeah...a beowolf cluster...you should see my server room; it's one of the messier obj^H^H^H^H places i've ever seen!

my no. 1 tip...

[buzban]

North America, at about 4:30AM of the 19th is about the peak time to watch for it.

important point! that, and the moon issue It's a shame the moon is nearly full that night, though. ...is why I'll be doing my observing closer to sunday or monday if the weather cooperates...

Re:Refreshening.

[EmagGeek]

I get up at 3:30AM to run 10k before going to work at 5... every day :) I should have a nice view that morning!

The last Leonid shower I saw was in 1998 while I was doing some work at the Woodbury Research Facility... It was quite a good show and since this place is in rural Georgia, it was extremely dark... I tried looking at last year's shower, but the light situation in suburban Philly is horrible..

One other fun thing that I've found to look at is occultation around the edge of the moon. On occasion, mountains on the moon obscure stars passing near the horizon for a few minutes. With a small scope, it's really cool to watch them disappear and reappear along the edge. You can find occultations listen in Astronomy Magazine...

Happy Viewing...

Re:I'm betting we see nothing spectacular

[Wiwi Jumbo]

Then you probably didn't go out last year... I went outside my apartment for about 45 min's last year and I saw 70+... some were brights ones as well.

Don't give up!

meteors

[fjordboy]

I saw the shower last year and it was incredible. We saw hundreds if not thousands of meteors. At some points, you couldn't look anywhere in the sky and *not* see a meteor. It was truly amazing. If this year is half as good as last year, it should be pretty cool.

However, no matter how many meteors there are and how often they come, it seems to be VERY difficult to capture them on film. Using an SLR camera with a cable release and a tripod, a friend and I used something like 5 rolls of films and probably only got 15-20 usable pictures that had meteors in. (You can check them out here at peterswift.org. And they weren't joking about light pollution either! We were pretty far out in the country in North Central PA at Camp Susque, but even the lights from a tiny town with one gas station and a restaraunt really made a lot of the pictures have big bright spots (and the town/village was about 3-4 miles away!).

Re:meteors

[mikeboone]

Here's my photo attempt from last year.

Use fast film and a large aperture lens to try to get photos of single meteors with stars as points. Use slower film (and longer exposures) to get star trails. That might be easier since you never know when the meteors will appear (last year I only saw about 100/hour for a couple hours).

You also have to watch out for dew condensing on your lenses. It might also be a good idea to keep your camera bag in the garage for a couple hours to let the camera and lenses cool down.

Re:meteors

[herrd0kt0r]

excellent suggestions. if your camera runs on lithium batteries, be sure you bring one or two extra ones, and keep em in your pants. they batteries like to poop out in the cold.

i shot TMAX-100 at 100, with f3.5 lens at 28mm, and kept the sucker open for 15 minutes for each exposure-- got wunnerful trails, but only ONE nice-lookin meteor (dumb camera was pointed in the wrong direction). only got a couple of usable shots, as i only brought one battery (which is why i remind you of the above suggestion).

it's very important to have a tripod! and don't futz with your camera! if you've got a shutter release, that's great too.

here's my obligatory photo of the leonids from last year. one nice one, several very faint ones.

ISS?

[anonymous cupboard]

Anyone know where the ISS is when the Leonids start coming in?

The sat operators have been told to close down non-essential systems and to reorientate themselves to present a minimal profile to the showers.

Re:ISS?

[hottoh]

Yes. These folks seem to:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/S Sa pplications/Post/SightingData/sighting_index.html

So happens they are viewable Tuesday morning from KC MO.

If you want to count the rate - here's a help...

[wnknisely]

NASA has posted a little Palm OS applet to aid people who want to try counting the meteor rate.

You can find it here.

And information about it over on Space.com.

Re:time

[aiabx]

You see the most meteors when the side of the earth you are on is facing into the direction the earth is travelling. No matter where you are, the meteor show will start around 11 local time, and finish around dawn local time.
-aiabx

Re:Important telescope astronomy tips

[Melantha_Bacchae]

Most important telescope astronomy tip for meteor viewing:

Don't use a telescope.

Meteors are pretty zippy. By the time you get a telescope trained on the exact spot where a meteor was, it and twenty of its fellows will be gone. Its even hard to train a pair of binoculars on an individual meteor, unless it is a particularly slow moving fireball.

Use your naked eyes (with glasses if you need them). Spend at least 20 minutes outside in the dark before begining any serious observations. Protect your eyes from street lights, porch lights, flash lights, looking directly at the moon, any light source that is non-red and/or bright. Do not go into your brightly lit home for anything.

And if you are in the Northern hemisphere, dress warmly. It is November. Dress for 20 degrees below the actual temperature, in layers.

General: "Increase voltage"
Officer 1: "Turn power up"
Engineer: "Captain, we're registering too much voltage for safety now."
Officer 2: "Increase voltage"
Voltage sound effects, shot of Godzilla struggling, cable burns through, substation fries, Godzilla is free.
Scene from American version "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (1964)

Mothra: boldly going where no starship captain had gone before.

Why bother...

[dead_penguin]

I think I'm going to skip this one...
My local weather forecast:

Greater Vancouver: Issued 5.00 AM pst Friday 15 November 2002
Today..Cloudy with 60 percent chance of rain. Rain developing this afternoon. High 11.
Tonight..Periods of rain. Windy near the water. Low 8.
Saturday..Rain heavy at times. Wind southeast 30 to 50 km/h near the water. High 12.
Sunday..Periods of rain. Low 7. High 12.
Monday..Rain. Windy. Low 9. High 12.
Tuesday..Rain. Windy. Low 8. High 11.
Normals for the period..Low 3. High 9.

Looks about par for the course. Maybe some of you can post some nice pictures of the Leonids for me somewhere. :(

Suggested equipments for best view

[superwai]

Wondering if anyone can tell me what equipment do I need to watch the meteor shower?
I want to take pictures of the night.
Any preparation is needed??

Re:Suggested equipments for best view

[dsb3]

> I want to take pictures of the night.

read this --
http://luminous-landscape.com/techniques/leonide s- 2002.shtml

Re:Suggested equipments for best view

[dargaud]

OK, here it goes:

• a stable tripod
• a cable release (if not, use the delay)
• a WIDE ANGLE (20mm or 24mm)
• A fast lens (f2.8 or better).
• A precise film: do not use 3200iso: 100/200iso slide film is best, although that's counter-intuitive.

Do long exposures if you are in a pretty dark area (20 minutes), no more than 5 minutes if near a city. The stars will rotate on the picture but it's no big deal.

And here is the result (see the shooting star on the right of the picture ?). Pic taken in Utah.

Re:Guaranteed meteor shower viewing enjoyment

[fjordboy]

Ok..a beowolf cluster, vodka and cowboyneal are all reasonable and make sense...but why a telescope? Do you think you're going to be able to see the meteors through the telescope? They move sort of fast you know...also, you would need one heck of a wide angle lens...

A camera is more of an essential than a telescope..and I don't mean for taking pictures of your nights debauchery with cowboyneal, I'm talking about taking pictures of the meteors.

It's later this year

[jesterzog]

Wasn't the shower supposed to be on the 18th

The Leonids shower usually peaks at about that time every year. This year though, there are a couple of storm peaks predicted.

The storms are caused by specific trails of ice and dust left by the comet, and the Earth is expected to go near those trails slightly later than the regular Leonids shower peak. This is why the predictions you're hearing are slightly later than the regular date.

Overstating things leads to disappointment...

[Curious__George]

A meteor storm is when it exceeds 2000 per hour. This is actually not an HOURLY figure however, for even meteor storm conditions are relatively brief periods of time. This is why you will see forcasts given in 15 minute segments. NASA forcasts by city can be found here: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/leonids_lowdown_02 1101.html.

Even the HIGHEST prediction is "only" 1200 per hour. While this is a superb shower, it does not qualify as a storm. The moon, as noted, will wash out the fainter ones.

Meteor prediction is a young and inexact science, so don't plan on setting your alarm for the exact time of the peak and then seeing it. Go out early and stay late!

Great page here at space.com.

I'm hoping for CLEAR SKIES!

Re:Overstating things leads to disappointment...

[gleam]

The higher ends of the predictions came from an astronomer at Adler Planetarium here in Chicago. He may very well have been exaggerating for effect, but it's hard to tell.

http://aio.arc.nasa.gov/~leonid/1998.html

Check that for the ZHR for the overall US..

Quote: "Two Leonid storms are expected with rates higher than in 2001, when the Zenith Hourly Rate peaked at 1,300 /hr for the USA peak. Beware: the next Leonid storms are not due until 2099!"

The great leonid flux estimator at http://aio.arc.nasa.gov/~leonid/estimator.html offers a prediction of 3000/hr at the peak time of 4:20 am CST (for chicago, in the countryside, like at a state park or something)

so although I think 10,000/hr is definitely a very, very high estimate for a single area, it's well within the Asher predictions for ZHR at about 4:20AM CST

-gleam