Watch Leonid Meteor Shower 2009 this Wednesday!
Leonid meteor storm will break over the US, North America and Western Africa on the morning of Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (Indian time). This will emit a bright shower of shooting stars in the atmosphere, which can be observed with the naked eye.
Leonid Meteor Shower animation from NASA
The Leonid meteor storm is expected to emit 30-300 meteors every hour, depending on where you are stationed. This is higher than average, but not as high as in 1833 – when over a hundred thousand meteors lit up the skies. In North America, skywatchers may be able to witness about 30 meteors pouring into the sky, while those in Asia may be able to catch about 300 meteors every hour.
Photo: Leonid Meteor Shower 2002, image courtesy redorbit.com
Leonid meteor showers are some of the most prominent among the shooting stars visible to the naked eye.
“We’re predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “Our forecast is in good accord with independent theoretical work by other astronomers.”
Nasa astronomers said last December – immediately after the last Lenoid shower – that in 2009, the meteor shower will be bigger and brighter. According to them, the November 2008 Leonid storm of shooting stars broke several earlier years of relative “quiet.”
Watch Leonid meteor shower
In India, meteor watchers will be able to view the Leonid meteor shower and click their photos on the night of November 17 starting 1030 PM. The number of meteors slamming down on the atmosphere will steadily increase till the first light of dawn. Though skywatchers in North America and Europe will be able to witness the Leonid shooting stars, this time it will be the night owls in South Asia and Australia who will have a better view. Viewers in India, China and Indonesia will have the advantage having clear, pre-dawn skies to watch the Leonid meteor spectacle. According to a Nasa document, India has the least cloudy weather among the favourable viewing regions. Nasa also adds that the near-new moon will also improve visibility of the Leonid meteor shower.
How to click photos and images of Leonid meteors
Photographing the Leonid Meteor storm will require a lot of trial and error. It is advisable to have a cable-release system for the shutter click. Set the camera –preferably with a 35 mm lens – on tripod, aim at the dark sky, see how images of the dark sky and the moon come out when you open and shut the aperture manually. Remember that meteor light will be more spread out but less in intensity. Leonid meteor photos cannot be clicked with an autofocus camera setting. Open the aperture fully, set the focus to infinity and aim the camera at the area where the meteors from the Leonid storm will appear – that is, towards the constellation of Leo. Open the camera shutter with the cable release (or a remote) and keep it open until a meteor – or several – zip across the frame. Close the shutter and examine the picture. If you see the Leonid meteor photo is not bright enough, adjust ISO to 400 or 800. You will need to experiment several times before you can get the right combination of shutter speed and ISO for your Leonid meteor shower images.
What is a Leonid meteor shower
Leonid meteors are caused by the fragments of Comet Tempel Tuttle, which orbits the Sun once every 32.5 years. The comet Tempel Tuttle is composed of dust and ice, which start melting when the comet nears the Sun. The tail fragments of the comet are ejected to the space, the particles of which are usually around a millimeter in size.
When earth runs into this cloud of debris left behind by the Comet Tempel Tuttle, the fine particles slam into the atmosphere, where they collide with atoms in the atmosphere and ionize them. When electrons in the ions return to their rest positions after being knocked off their orbits, they cool off and emit photons, which result in light. Meteor showers like the one from the Leonid meteor storm are usually called shooting stars. This time, Earth won’t be rushing straight into
the centre of the debris of Tempel Tuttel, but will rather skim the edges of the trail.
The Leonid meteor storm which will be visible this year (2009) will be from the debris left behind by the Comet Tempel Tuttle in 1466 and 1533. The meteor shower takes its name from the Leo constellation. When observed from the Earth, the meteors seem to be directed from the constellation Leo.
To observe the Leonid meteor shower shooting stars, one does not need a telescope, though it will surely improve the vision. Stay away from city lights, and bright illumination. Since it will be around New Moon, visibility should be high, unless marred by clouds or unseasonal rain. Every year, the Leonid meteor shower appears around November 17-18, 2009. In fact, the Leonid meteors start appearing in the skies a full week before the actual peaking on November 17, 2009.
This year, the Leonid celestial spectacle is expected to be bigger and brighter than many previous years. A bright Leonid meteor storm may emit fireballs, which are bigger than usual meteors, and may even emit a sonic boom. However, these particles from the debris of Comet Tempel Tuttle are too small for any damage, and completely disintegrate in the Earth’s atmosphere.