Leonid Meteor Shower Peak: How To Watch In NYC

NEW YORK CITY – A meteor shower that typically sends 10 to 15 bright rocks streaking across the night sky every hour is set to peak this weekend.

The National Weather Service is calling for cloudy skies as the show reaches its height Sunday night into Monday, but the Leonid meteors should still be visible – though the waning gibbous moon will likely make it a little too bright for optimum viewing.

The Leonids are known for producing some of the most amazing meteor storms, though this year is not expected to be the most spectacular, according to meteor experts.

The best viewing times for the Leonid meteor shower are after midnight and before dawn. They radiate outward from the stars that make up the lion’s mane in the constellation Leo, but Bill Cooke, NASA’s meteor expert, told Space.com that skywatchers who stare directly at the radiant point may miss meteors that have longer tails.

Earthsky.org advises skywatchers to look away from the moon for the best chance to see Leonid meteors. You’ll also want to find a dark sky as far away as possible from city lights.

The meteor shower occurs when the Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which litters its orbital path with debris. The debris vaporizes when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the falling stars.

Experts say at least 1,000 meteors an hour must fall for a shower to be considered a storm, which they say occur about every 33 years, the amount of time it takes Tempel-Tuttle to orbit the sun. The parent comet releases fresh debris with every orbit, increasing the likelihood of a meteor storm.

The greatest Leonids meteor storm ever recorded was in 1833, when up to 100,000 meteors an hour were reported. Then 33 years later, a storm occurred in 1866. That caused astronomers to predict another one in 1899, but it didn’t occur.

The next spectacular Leonid meteor storm didn’t occur until 1966, where skywatchers in the southwest U.S. reported seeing 40 to 50 meteors a second (2,400 to 3,000 per minute) for a 15-minute period during the peak, Earthsky said.

Spaceweather.com reported another Leonid meteor storm occurred in 2001, when “thousands of meteors an hour rained over North America and Hawaii.”