[AANC Contacts] Leonids tonight!

[Jane Houston Jones]

Tonight is Leonid night!

The Leonids are my favorite meteor shower, partly because I've been
participating in meteor counting research as an amateur astronomer for a
dozen years. But also because this shower is well documented in art,
culture and history going back to the 900's.

It looks like we'll have decent weather tonight for those who want to see a
few shooting stars. If you want to see some of this historic meteor shower,
the best time for us here in the US is from 12:30 am to 2:30 am. (that's
Pacific time) Tuesday morning - aka in less than 12 hours from right now.

The time usually recommended for meteor shower watching is the "hours before
dawn" timeframe.  But this time, because Earth will be plowing through a
"denser clump" of meteor dust at that time, the rates will go up a little.
Not like the storm years of 1998-2002, when thousands of meteors rained down
on the Earth, but a nice reminder that our solar system is an amazing place.


An article recalling the 1999 and the 1899 Leonids is here:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/scitech/display.cfm?ST_ID=2289

Based on my blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/2009/11/09/flying-through-the-leonid-storm-of-1999/ 





-- 
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
Websites: http:www.whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers:  http://www.otastro.org
My NASA JPL What's Up podcast: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup.cfm
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones  http://twitter.com/CassiniSaturn
Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/