Talk:Leonids

2001 Leonids
''What is the best way to view the upcoming Leonids meteor shower? Will everyone be able to see it? Might it be a dud?''

Well, according to :
 * The Leonids approach the Earth at a declination of about 22 degrees. If your latitude is less than 22 degrees (or in the Southern Hemisphere), look to the northeast; the further south you are, the more the meteors will appear to be coming from the north. If your latitude is greater than 22 degrees, look to the southeast; the further north of 22 degrees you are, the more the meteors will look to be arriving from the south. Look about halfway up the horizon towards either the northeast (if you're south of 22 degrees) or the southeast (if you're north of 22 degrees); if you are looking straight up, you can miss many of the meteors. Be alert! The Leonids are moving very fast with respect to the Earth (~71 km/sec), so the meteor streaks that we can see go quickly. Places with dark skies away from city lights are the best 1locations.

Based on my personal experience, the darker the sky the better. Two years ago I saw a few spectacular ones in my neighborhood, but in just two years the light pollution has gotten so bad that I'm seriously considering driving tens of miles out into the country.

As for it being a "dud," the models suggest the contrary. "Several models are predicting two significant peaks: one over the United States (especially towards the west) beginning about 3-4 am EST and lasting until 6-7 am EST. The maximum, according to these models, will occur around 5 am EST. The level of activity for this peak could be as much as 2000 meteors per hour." 

I see no reason to duplicate any more of the excellent content at the two external links that are already cited. &lt;&gt;&lt; tbc

Thanks!

But couldn't you include some of this info in the article itself? Some of it is "news" rather than encyclopedia info, but some of it is encyclopedia info. --LMS

Viewers experience: 2001
I just spent an hour (2am-3am, Nov 18, 2001, Pacific Standard Time, North San Jose, California) outside in my backyard simply looking up. It was a wonderful sight. Shooting stars came down as frequently as just a few seconds apart. But usually the frequency was around 30 seconds apart. My visibility was rather limited being surrounded by my neighbor's houses. So I could only see those shot overhead, I might have missed many that shot across the horizon. The longest streak I saw in the past hour had a view angle of over 45 degree. The brighter one looked like a speck of fire flying across the sky.

I heard on the radio (KGO 810) yesterday that the Leonids is expected to be a meteor "storm" this year with perhaps 5000 per hour. I estimated around 200 per hour based on the rate I personally observed. However, since I only could see perhaps 1/3 of the sky from my backyard, the estimate could be adjusted to 600 per hour. Also the point of origin was quite low in the sky, i.e. perhaps half of the meteor went below the horizon, so I may adjust my estimate to 1200 per hour entering the atmosphere. What I observed tonight was much less than the hype. Nevertheless, it was quite a sight.

Why doesn't everyone add their view of the 2001 Leonid shower, and afterwards we should be able to assemble a fairly comprehensive summary of their intensity in various locations around the world (at least the English-speaking part of it).

I viewed the Leonids from just north of Melbourne, Australia at approximately 3am local time till about 4am (had to work tomorrow). the best view I got was at 3, where bursts of 3 or 4 meteors every minute or so were easily visible. They usually appeared to be coming from the north-east and travelling west across the north sky. Whilst bright enough to be very easily visible, none were so bright as to significantly illuminate the ground, unlike some other reports. --Robert Merkel
 * The meteors appeared to come from the Constellation Leo hence the name Leonids. Actually, the tangent of the earth's orbit around the Sun at this time of the year is pointing at Leo hence the space debris enter the earths atmosphere seeming from the direction of Leo.  The meteors are phenominon in earth's atmosphere which is unrelated to the stars of Leo lightyears away.  So the position in the sky really depends on the viewer's location.  They seemed to come from north-east w.r.t. Melbourne, Australia.  When I watched from North California, they seemed to radiate from the south-east towards all directions.

Calgary, Canada. I viewed the shower from an urban park, about magnitude 3 stars visible. (Orion's Nebula not discernible.) I counted about 100 meteors between November 18 3am and 4am local time (-7 GMT). About 10 were Wow!; left smoke trails. -- BillMorrow


 * smoke trails!!?? Yes, I also saw many of them leaving a trail of light that was wider than just a streak which last for about a second.  Smoke trails may be a very appropriate description though I don't believe that were smoke at all.  I believe they were ionization in the atmosphere that radiate some secondary light for a brief second.  Any scientists or astronomers care to comment on this phenomonon?

Coachella Valley Preserve, California - The preserve is an oasis in the desert outside Palm Springs, so we had a very dark sky, but there was moderate cloud cover which hampered viewing somewhat. There were as many as 4 meteors in eyeshot on a few occassions, and at peak we saw probably a sustained 5 or 6 per minute. There were a handful that were so bright they seemed to light the sky for just a flash. Most were from the north-east, but the sky was full of meteors in every direction, so it was difficult to see them all. - TimShell

moving on to 2002... the page says "The storm in 2002 is expected to be spectacular as well." -- but that has now taken place. Was it spectacular as expected or not? -- Tarquin 23:21 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

NASA pages
Appears these two links are broken--Mahadevan T S 08:23, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * http://aio.arc.nasa.gov/~leonid/meteor.html
 * Estimate the best viewing times for your part of the world

Wikify
I've done some basic article formatting and wikified some terms. Robovski 04:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I've removed the wikify tag, as the article has improved. Robovski 23:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Which time this year
What day and which time of day will leonids come this year (2006)? Should there be a timetable for years to come so that people would know when look at the sky? 193.65.112.51 12:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

no film footage from 1966 storm?
Why no film footage from the 1966 storm? Is it too hard to film because, you know, it's dark at night? 216.4.147.69 (talk) 06:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

1833 Leonids and the 2nd Great Awakening
I read years ago (source forgotten) that the 1833 Leonid shower played a role in the 2nd Great Awakening. From dates in that article, 1833 is a too late for a causative role in the 2nd, and far too early for the 3rd.

The same forgotten source mentioned that it was the first historically recorded time that people could intuitively sense the motion of the earth through space, because the rate was so great as to remind one of walking into a snow flurry.

Does anyone have information on these topics to add to this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.165.65.171 (talk) 02:47, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

something to add
Structure among the trails -. Smkolins (talk) 14:32, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

NASA page on 2001 Leonids http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast26nov_1/, with link to electrophonic hearing — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ema Zee (talk • contribs) 02:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Size and mass?
"Leonids in particular are well known for having bright meteors or fireballs which may be 9 mm across and have 85 g of mass..."

Am I missing something, or does that give them a density of around 100g/cm^3? That would seem unlikely. --GenericBob (talk) 14:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * That statement was added to the article on 24 December 2009 by Smkolins. I have replaced it with a referenced source. -- Kheider (talk) 19:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Greek name in lead paragraph?
"Their proper Greek name should be Leontids (Λεοντίδαι, Leontídai), but the word was initially constructed as a Greek/Latin hybrid[citation needed] and it has been used since." Why would their name be Greek? All of the other meteor showers have Latin names. Of course in some cases the Latin and Greek forms are the same, since the Latin form of many Greek names is simply a direct transliteration; but even then they're treated as Latin in form and grammar. I don't think this sentence is relevant to the article. P Aculeius (talk) 03:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Photo or what?
Hi, all. Is File:Trouvelot- The November meteors. - 1868.jpg a (tinted) photograph or something non-photographic? And what is the explanation for the sudden change in course of one of the meteors and the wiggly paths described by some of the others? — President Lethe (talk) 01:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I fixed the url of the original source and I notice it is labeled in the "Trouvelot astronomical drawings: Atlas." collection. So it's a drawing of some kind. Reports of spiraling meteors go way back and continue in modern times but have never been positively photographed as such that I have heard of. There has been the suggestion of a spinning meteor that also throws stuff off - that could look like spiraling. Exploding meteors could look like a meteor that bounces but again none have ever been heard of really doing this - just an appearance of things or an impression given. --Smkolins (talk) 16:26, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121013131705/http://imo.net/live/leonids2006/ to http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2006/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121013134026/http://imo.net/live/leonids2007/ to http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2007/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121013131729/http://imo.net/live/leonids2008/ to http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2008/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090819115301/http://science.mikelopez.info/2008/12/07/watch-out-for-leonids-2009-meteor-shower/ to http://science.mikelopez.info/2008/12/07/watch-out-for-leonids-2009-meteor-shower/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100119054421/http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2009/ to http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2009
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121127105159/http://imo.net/live/leonids2010/ to http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2010/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121031161949/http://imo.net/live/leonids2011/ to http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2011/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121008085151/http://www.imcce.fr/langues/en/ephemerides/phenomenes/meteor/predictions.php to http://www.imcce.fr/langues/en/ephemerides/phenomenes/meteor/predictions.php

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External links modified (January 2018)
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Contradictions for the 2022 ZHR
I was excited to see the 2022 ZHR predicted to be so high and I went to verify it and found some conflicting statements about it. Currently, the table predicts a ZHR of 250-300, apparently based on the work of Mikhail Maslov, but this one predicts 50-200. Other pages have predicted ZHRs of only 10-15. Is there a reason this page goes with the highest predicted number? TornadoLGS (talk) 02:46, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Try to think about conflict of interest and what if a high ZHR would suggest the ongoing collapse of the magnetic field which official space agencies (such as the ESA) are trying to suppress 178.235.190.11 (talk) 21:42, 17 November 2022 (UTC)


 * (15) Predicted and (300) possible are two very different things. -- Kheider (talk) 22:03, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A "Reliability" rating of 1-2 is "unlikely" while a rating of 3-4 is "possible" (more likely). -- Kheider (talk) 19:25, 9 September 2023 (UTC)