Is an ‘off-year’ Leonid outburst in the cards for November?

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It is nonetheless one of many coolest issues I ever noticed. I used to be within the U.S. Air Power within the 90s, and November 1998 noticed me deployed to the darkish skies of Kuwait. That journey supplied an sudden deal with, because the Leonid meteors hit dramatic storm ranges on the morning of the seventeenth. Meteors got here quick and livid in the direction of native dawn, usually lighting up the desert ground like celestial photoflashes within the sky.

As soon as each 33 years or so, the ‘lion roars,’ as Leonid meteors appear to rain down from the Sickle asterism of the constellation Leo. And whereas the final outbreak was centered across the years surrounding 1999, there’s some attention-grabbing dialogue about potential encounters with previous Leonid streams in 2024.

The Leonids in 2024

To make certain, 2024 is in any other case slated to be an off yr for the bathe. The traditional annual most for 2024 is predicted to happen on Sunday, November seventeenth at round ~4:00 Common Time (UT), with an anticipated Zenithal Hourly Price (ZHR) of 15-20 meteors per hour seen beneath perfect circumstances. This favors Europe within the early daybreak hours.

A Leonid outburst in 2024?

However there are additionally just a few different streams that will arrive earlier this week and are value watching. Jérémie Vaubaillon of the Paris Observatory IMCCE notes that Earth might encounter three older streams from periodic comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The comet is the supply of the Leonids. On a 33.8 yr orbit, a meteor bathe happens when the Earth plows headlong into the stream of mud and particles laid down by the comet.

The three suspect trails are:

• A path laid down in 1633 (the supply of the 2001 meteor storm). Earth is close to this path on November 14th at 16:37 UT, favoring northwestern North America within the early morning hours.
• A mud path from 1733, peaking on November 19/twentieth at 23:53 to 00:54 UT, favoring north/central Asia.
• And at last, an encounter with a string of older (greater than a millennium outdated) streams on November 14th at 16:37 UT, (the identical time because the 1633 stream). It’s value noting that the 1733 stream was the suspected supply of the 1866 Leonid meteor storm.

Watching this Thursday morning on the 14th could possibly be a harbinger as as to whether or not we’re in for a present. Sadly, the moon is waxing gibbous and headed in the direction of full this week on November fifteenth, which means that it’ll present growing illumination and minimize down noticed meteor charges.

The Leonids in recent times have held regular at predicted charges of about or so 20 per hour. It is value noting that one other encounter with the 1699 stream and potential outburst is predicted for subsequent yr, 2025.

Meteor bathe… or storm?

Meteor storms happen when the zenithal hourly fee tops 500 or extra per hour. Remember, a ZHR of a thousand or greater implies that you are seeing a meteor each few seconds. The October Draconids and the December Andromedids are additionally vulnerable to nice outbursts, however the Leonids are essentially the most infamous and well-known. The 1966 bathe seen over the U.S. southwest topped a tremendous ZHR of as much as 150,000 per hour.

Observing and imaging the Leonids

Early morning hours are finest to see meteors, as you are standing on the swath of the floor of the Earth that is turned ahead in to the stream. Pinpoint meteors will happen close to the bathe radiant, whereas lengthy streaks will stand out in stark profile about 45 to 90 levels away on both facet of the radiant.

I wish to intention my tripod-mounted DSLR at these areas, set the lens to the widest discipline of view potential, and easily let it run taking auto-exposures and see what turns up. An intervalometer is a superb gadget to automate this course of. This enables me to only sit again with a steaming sizzling cup of tea (a should for chilly November mornings) and easily watch the present, as meteors slide by.

Maybe, we’ll merely have to attend for the 2030s to see sturdy exercise from the Leonids once more. However do you actually wish to threat lacking a shock present? To cite hockey participant Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100% of the pictures you do not take.” The identical holds true for lacking versus catching meteor storms: you simply have to indicate up and watch.