Leonids Meteor Shower Party
WHAT TO EXPECT: Work by astronomers Robert McNaught (Australia) and David Asher (Ireland) suggest that we may have opportunities to see meteor storms from the Leonids during these next couple of years: They boldly predict that the greatest storm numbers could happen in 2001 or 2002, when rates in the thousands might be expected. Predicting exactly just how any meteor display will "perform" can be rather difficult. As ever, we must wait and see -- but we can always hope too! It appears that for North Americans in 2001, the Leonids will be most active on the morning of November 18, when the Earth is expected to interact with a dust trail that was spewed from Comet Tempel-Tuttle back in the year 1767. Observing conditions will be excellent. The waxing Moon will be a slender sliver in Ophiuchus, less than three days old and hence will be completely absent from the after-midnight sky. Projected hourly rates range from possibly 800 to 2000! The encounter with this debris trail is predicted to occur sometime between 4:55 and 5:28 a.m. Eastern Time (subtract one hour for the Central Time Zone, two hours for Mountain Time, three hours for Pacific Time and 5 hours for Alaska/Hawaii). These predicted times are based on studies by Asher and McNaught as well as Esko Lyytinen (Finland)and Tom Van Flandern (US). a mnemosynæ production |
Pack your Communicators, Tricorders,
and PalmPilots into your spaceship and warp on over to the Hutton's place to watch the
Leonids Meteor Shower. The moon will be almost new, so it'll be a great night for watching. Dan's house has great watching space.
Breakfast will be served the next day. And there will be space for pitching a tent. If you are staying the night, let Mark know so that we can plan for enough food. If you have questions, contact Mark Boyden. |
