Meet The Leonids

Kathy Miles writes "The Leonid meteor shower is promising to be a 'once in a lifetime event.' It's not hard to photograph meteors, a simple 35mm camera that you can lock open the shutter on works fine. Here's complete instructions for 35mm, video and digital cameras.And, on the same site is information such as lore and myth, best way to watch meteors and times and skymaps for all US timezones. Happy Meteor watching!" And Geert Barentsen writes "As the adrenaline for the final Leonid meteor storm (November 19th) rises, one site seems to do a call to everybody to count the meteor activity and help science. With a few thousand meteors predicted per hour, it's going to be a busy night for true geeks :-)" Kevin Smolkowski writes "For the second year in a row, NASA will have Live Coverage of the 2002 Leonid meteor storm on Monday. Perfect for those of you surrounded by city lights. The all night show is hosted by NASA astronomers. They'll offer observing tips, answer phone calls from sky watchers, and tour the skies with a video camera located at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama." Update: 11/18 22:40 GMT by T : McGravin writes "Everyone should also keep an ear on the extraplanetary visitors, too. I'm going to go add some ear-flaps to the tin foil helmet that protects my brain from them, so I can hear the meteors."

Comments

See this while you can.

[Jasn]

If you're not surrounded by insane light pollution ... make a point of watching this while you can. It may not be the same for years, maybe decades ...

Is it just me?

[Jason1729]

Or is the Leonid shower billed as "once in a lifetime" every year?

Re:Is it just me?

[Urox]

The reason last year was more of a once in a lifetime is because this year there's a full moon. Last year there was no moon and thus far better viewing conditions.

Good night to test radio propagation

[Nonillion]

This will provide some interesting propagation on the VHF and UHF ham bands. Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake long enough to work a few stations on the ionized trails the meteors leave behind..

Great from a plane

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

I happened to be on a flight a few years ago (I think 1999) when it was a good year for the meteor shower. The show is even more fantastic from up above the clouds. The many colors you could pick out easily paid for the fare of the flight by itself, not that I planned it that way.

Too bad I can't justify getting up in a plane this year for the shower.

Re:Tip for Photography

[r_j_prahad]

I fogged a lot of film last year with way-too-long exposures. When you get one of those persistant fire trails, it's time to close the shutter and advance the film. And a good fireball doesn't even have to be in-frame to do this, I had a few off axis sparklers that caused some major lense artifacts (although some of those turned out to be *really* good prints unintentionally). If the artifacting bothers your sense of purity, use a big lens hood.

Re:Sucks in Seattle

[Anonymous Coward]

This past August, I went to Olympic National Park, on Hurricane Ridge, to see them. Some guys from NASA were there to give a talk too. Just a short ferry ride to Bainbridge and about 1.5 hrs of driving. I'm sure they're having something up there for this. Too bad I'm stuck in Virginia. Bring your coat...its damn cold!

Re:This year's once-in-a-lifetime event

[coryboehne]

Yeah, this is indeed going to be a once in a lifetime event (or at least first in a lifetime event) for me, after reading about the electrophonic meteor sounds I decided that I'm going to strech a bit of tinfoil over a frame in the hopes that it will enable me to actually hear them well. Anyone else care to verify that this works before I try it? :)

Many Leonids are about marble sized

[fritz_269]

From here

The faintest meteor that becomes visible to the average viewer on Earth is typically about 0.6 millimeters across (less than one-tenth of an inch or about the size of a sand grain). While such a speck is here and gone in a flash, the energy involved could light a 100-watt light bulb for about 2.5 seconds, Cooke said.

A slightly larger meteor, just 1 millimeter across and only moderately bright, packs the punch of a .22 caliber bullet.

Spectacularly bright fireballs, for which this annual event is known, dissipate far more energy during their plunge through the atmosphere. A typical fireball, which can briefly shine as bright as the planet Venus, is the size of a marble, about 9 millimeters in diameter.

"Such a critter has a striking power in excess of 1 million joules, or about the same punch as a VW moving at 60 mph," Cooke marveled, "from a particle just over one-third of an inch across!"