Categories: Meteor Showers

2012 Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend

Early Leonids captured on Nov. 14, 2012 in Ohio. Credit: John Chumack

The annual Leonid Meteor Shower has already begun, according to astrophotographer John Chumack in Ohio, who said he captured a dozen or so via his night sky video cameras earlier this week. But the peak for the Leonids this year is expected to be this weekend, and the best viewing should be during the hours before dawn on November 17, according to the editors of StarDate magazine at the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory

Every year about this time Earth passes through the debris field left by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The tiny grains of dust enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, sometimes leaving glowing dust trails, which we call meteors.

Graphic via StarDate magazine of the Leonid meteor shower.

If you wait until the hours before dawn this weekend, the Moon will be below the horizon, so its light will not interfere with seeing meteors. Astronomers says that with clear skies, viewers can expect to see about 15 to 20 meteors per hour, though the shower has proved highly variable in recent years.

Though the meteors will appear to originate from the constellation Leo, which will be in the eastern sky in the early morning hours, the meteors can be seen in all parts of the sky.

If you capture any images of the meteor shower, share them with Universe Today by uploading them on our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Here’s another look at John Chumack’s early Leonids.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

We Understand Rotating Black Holes Even Less Than We Thought

The theory of black holes has several mathematical oddities. Recent research shows our understanding of…

1 hour ago

Habitable Worlds are Found in Safe Places

When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we hone in…

2 hours ago

New Glenn Booster Moves to Launch Complex 36

Nine years ago, Blue Origin revealed the plans for their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift…

2 hours ago

How Many Additional Exoplanets are in Known Systems?

NASA's TESS mission has turned up thousands of exoplanet candidates in almost as many different…

6 hours ago

Hubble and Webb are the Dream Team. Don't Break Them Up

Many people think of the James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of Hubble 2.…

13 hours ago

Scientists Have Figured out why Martian Soil is so Crusty

On November 26th, 2018, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight)…

21 hours ago