Are You Ready...For The Leonids?

[Speed]

They peak on November 17th. The good news, this is suppose to be a good year. The bad news, the peak will occur over Asia. Still, the Leonids are one of the best meteor showers of the year, and the show is good a couple of days before and after the peak.

From spaceweather.com:

"LEONIDS 2009: On Nov. 17th at about 2100 UT, Earth will pass through a stream of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, triggering an outburst of Leonid meteors. Forecasts of the peak range from 150 to 500 meteors per hour--somewhere between a "good show" and a "half storm." Observers in China, India, Japan and Indonesia are favored to see the brief but intense display. Complete details are available from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office."

And the NASA release:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/372657main_2...ty_Public2.pdf

[ken1953]

Thanx for the heads up, Speed. Got the Pentax back and so might be able to get a few shots even with my limited shooting time. Saw some nice meteorites during the Perseids and one fireball just after the Perseids, so hope to maybe get lucky and catch one on sensor..hehe.

[GB1]

I want to head out to the desert that day.. only a two hr drive from San Diego, close to PITCH BLACK out here .. no moon that day either .. will be excellent. Trouble is, all my friends don't really care for camping that much and taking a day off work to do it is probably too much for them. Booooooooooooooo.

G

[Speed]

Another article on this years Leonids form Space.com. Looks like it should be a good year, even if we do miss the peak.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/0911...ower-2009.html

[Speed]

Thanx for the heads up, Speed. Got the Pentax back and so might be able to get a few shots even with my limited shooting time. Saw some nice meteorites during the Perseids and one fireball just after the Perseids, so hope to maybe get lucky and catch one on sensor..hehe.

Hey Ken,

Congrats on getting your Pentax back. Hope you have good weather for this. Weather has really limited a lot of my astrophotography, but I'm hoping for clear weather this year. I'll be out with the D200 and D300 if I have clear skies.

[Speed]

I want to head out to the desert that day.. only a two hr drive from San Diego, close to PITCH BLACK out here .. no moon that day either .. will be excellent. Trouble is, all my friends don't really care for camping that much and taking a day off work to do it is probably too much for them. Booooooooooooooo.

G

The desert - a great place to do astrophotography! I envy guys like you and Rick that can do that. You should get some great shots from out there. Think about me evnying you while you enjoy yourself.

Two words for camping - air mattress! I love camping, but sleeping on the ground I don't sleep much in my old age. But an air mattress makes it a joy again. Suggest that to your friends, and of course, you could always offer some incentives (beer, wine, steaks, whatever). Though then you may have to limit your guests. ;-)

[livin4lax09]

wooo i know just where to go

[gahspidy]

Thanks for the heads up! I'll certainly be keeping mine up but I have so much light pollution here in the city. I might be heading upstate on the 16 and 17 so maybe I still have a chance.

[Speed]

wooo i know just where to go

Then take your camera and tripod and go there! :-)

[Speed]

Thanks for the heads up! I'll certainly be keeping mine up but I have so much light pollution here in the city. I might be heading upstate on the 16 and 17 so maybe I still have a chance.

If you can get to some dark skies, then by all means do so. The darker the skies, the more meteors you will see.

[Speed]

Here is a link to various types of astrophotography:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/astrophotography
It strikes me as curious that they do not include one for photographing meteors.
While I don't claim to be an expert, I will tell you how I shoot meteor showers.
Obviously you need a camera, a tripod, and a way of taking long exposures. You definitely want to be in manual mode.

For lenses, the wider the better - to a point. I prefer a 50mm or wider lens (that's with a flim camera or a full frame digital sensor). A 28mm - or it's digital equivalent - is about as wide as I like to go. If you get too wide, the meteor trails are too small. But if you have a fisheye and are dying to try it, then go for it.

I shoot with ISO 400 speed film or I select ISO 400 on my digital camera. A faster film or ISO setting will show more stars and more meteors, but even a fairly dim meteor, magnitude 3 or 4, will show up nicely at ISO 400.

I shoot with a wide apeture. I like f2.8 or faster. The wider the apeture, the more meteors you will capture. I know you don't get the shapest image with a lens wide open, but we are talking about stars and meteors here. As long as your focus is good, you will get nice photos.

Speaking of focus, I select my lens, then focus on something bright (Jupiter is the bright "star" in the south and it works well) and then I set my focus on manual. That way the camera doesn't hunt for focus.

Exposure time depends on how wide your lens is and how much "trailing", ie, streaking, you want from your stars. With a 50mm lens on a film camera, 30 seconds is about all I want. The wider you go, the less trailing you will have for any given time. Experiment and see what you like.

My setup these days consists of my D200 and my D300. I use lenses set at 28mm (42mm film equivalent), ISO 400, f2.8, 30 second exposures. With my cameras, I can set the interval timers at one minute, fire the first one, and when the shutter closes on it, I fire the second one. That way I always have one camera recording.

The interval timer has the added benefit in that I can fire my cameras, then sit in the hot tub with my wife and watch the show while my cameras take the pictures. I find that a fully charged battery will last 90 minutes or so on interval timer.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I will share what I know.

[Speed]

It's getting close:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=8774

[livin4lax09]

speed - pick up a battery pack for your d300 and you can double that shooting time!

[Speed]

speed - pick up a battery pack for your d300 and you can double that shooting time!

I know. If I only had the money.

I can't complain about the D300. Most nights I go turn it off because I'm ready for bed and it's still taking pictures. Saturday night it took 104 photo's on a single charge. Sunday, I took 198 photo's of my daughter for her high school picture, then set up the D300 with that same battery and it took 93 photos - and was still going when I turned it off.

While that might not sound like much to those unfamiliar with invterval timer shooting, the camera never goes into standby (ie energy saving) mode when the interval timer is on. The camera stays powered up the entire time. So the battery is being drained the entire 93 minutes or 104 minutes that it's on. I don't know how many shots it can take when shooting in interval timer mode, because I always call it a night before the battery dies!

The D200 on the other hand is good for somewhere around 55 to 75 shots before the battery gives out on it. It amazes me how much more energy effiicient the D300 is. Never fear though, I have five batteries for the D200 and D300, so I can always swap out batteries and keep shooting if I'm so inclined.

[Speed]

The 2009 Leonids Are Coming!

Most meteor showers vary from year to year, but the Leonids are particularly capricious. Many years they chug along producing just 5 or 10 meteors visible per hour. But at the Leonids' historical greatest, in 1833, meteors were seen to fall "like snowflakes in a blizzard," with estimated rates of several dozen per second!

This year is expected to be better than average. The "traditional," most reliable part of the shower should peak around 4 a.m. EST (1 a.m. PST) on the morning of Tuesday, November 17th. You might see 20 or 30 meteors per hour under ideal dark-sky conditions. (Remember, if you want to stay up late instead of getting up early, you'll be staying up Monday night. It's easy to get the date wrong for events that happen after midnight!)

A second, briefer, but very intense outburst is expected about 12 hours later — during the early-morning hours of November 18th in Asia. (See "Will the Leonids Roar Again?".) There's only an off-chance that some activity from that burst will still be going on by the time the Earth turns halfway around and the Leonids become visible in the Americas on the morning of the 18th.

But if the sky is clear, why not go out again that morning — and also before the predicted peak, on the morning of the 16th? The Leonids have surprised the theorists before, and they surely will again.

Wherever you are, no Leonids will be visible before the shower's radiant point (in Leo) rises around local midnight. And peaks and bursts aside, the number of visible meteors increases steadily from radiant-rise until Leo is highest, just as the sky is starting to get light.

Be sure to bundle up warmly; meteor-watching is always colder than you expect. Ideal meteor-watching equipment is a comfortable lounge chair, a warm sleeping bag, and a pillow. If you live in a city or suburb, consider traveling to a dark location far from city skyglow. In any case, find a spot where no lights glare directly into your eyes.

The direction to watch is wherever your sky is darkest. Notice the meteors' flight paths; only those streaking away from the direction to the constellation Leo are Leonids.

Another, less-known meteor shower is going on simultaneously — the Taurids. They're sparse but tend to be very bright. If you see a slow, bright meteor heading away from the direction to Taurus, that's a Taurid.

And you're bound to see a few sporadics that aren't associated with any major shower.

For more information, read our article Basics of Meteor Observing. (Be sure to click on "Next Page" below the ad.) And if you already know the basics, take a look at Advanced Meteor Observing.

[Speed]

Leonid Meteor Shower 2009 Viewer's Guide

By Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
posted: 13 November 2009
08:20 am ET


When people hear about an impending meteor shower, their first impression may be of a sky filled with shooting stars pouring down through the sky like rain. Such meteor storms have actually occurred with the annual Leonid meteor shower of November, such as in 1833 and 1966, when meteor rates of literally tens of thousands per hour were observed.

In more recent years, most notably 1999, 2001 and 2002, lesser Leonid displays of up to a few thousand meteors per hour thrilled skywatchers.

This year will be not set any records, but the Leonids – set to peak early Tuesday morning, Nov. 17 – should offer a better-than-average display.

Tricky forecasting

The Leonid meteors are debris shed into space by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which swings through the inner solar system at intervals of 33.25 years, looping around the sun then heading back into the outskirts of the solar system. With each visit the comet leaves behind a trail of dust in its wake.

Plenty of the comet's old dusty trails litter the mid-November part of Earth's orbit and the Earth glides through this debris zone every year. But predicting exactly what's out there is tricky.

On special occasions we'll pass directly through an unusually concentrated dust trail, or filament, which can spark a meteor storm resulting in thousands of meteors per hour. That indeed is what transpired in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Since Comet Tempel-Tuttle comet passed near the sun (and in doing so crossed Earth's orbit) in 1998, it was in those years immediately following its passage that the Leonids put on their best show.

But the comet has since receded out to some 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km.) from the sun, having taken most of those dense filaments of dust with it. That's why this year, during the predawn hours of Nov. 17, when the Leonids traditionally should be at their most numerous, we now expect to see no more than 10 meteors per hour, even with the promise of this year's excellent viewing conditions thanks to a New moon.

Still – for some parts of the world, a far more prolific Leonid show could be in the offing this year. For although Comet Tempel-Tuttle is now far removed from the inner solar system, independent studies by several noted meteor scientists suggest that the Earth will pass through several notable trails of meteor activity in 2009. We'll list these encounters below in chronological order, including the prime regions of visibility.

Nov. 17, early a.m., Europe, western Africa/North America

The first cloud of comet dust was released from the nucleus of Tempel-Tuttle back in the year 1567. North America will be turned toward the constellation Leo when these particles begin pelting the upper layers of our atmosphere, some 80 to 100 miles (130 to 160 km.) above us. Earth's encounter with the comet dust is going to be brief– possibly no more than several hours long.

Unfortunately, we won't be going directly through the center of cloud, but rather skim through its outer edge on Nov. 17, chiefly between about 4:30 and 10:30 GMT. As a consequence, the meteor rate is not expected to get much higher than 20 or 30 per hour; on average about one meteor sighting every two or three minutes. Still, this is about two to three times the "normal" Leonid rate.

At the beginning of this window, it will still be dark across Europe and western Africa with Leo high up in the southeast sky, but within an hour the sky will be brightening as sunrise approaches, soon putting an end to meteor watching.

North Americans – especially those living near and along the Atlantic Seaboard – will be able to watch for Leonids from after 1 a.m. right on until the first light of dawn, which comes soon after 5 a.m. local time. Those in the eastern U.S. and Canada are especially favored because Leo will be high in the southeast sky between 3:30 and 5:30 a.m. EST, just before Earth is expected to exit the meteor cloud. For the West Coast, this translates to 12:30 to 2:30 a.m. PST, when Leo is much lower down in the eastern sky.

From Hawaii, Leo will be coming up above the east-northeast horizon right around the time that Earth is exiting the meteor cloud (12:30 a.m. Hawaii Time). However . . . this circumstance could lead to the appearance of a few long-trailed Earth-grazing meteors, due to meteoroids that skim along a path nearly parallel to Earth's surface.

Although the overall meteor numbers are expected to be modest at best, the particles that produce them might be larger than the usual flecks of dust that comprise the Leonid swarm. Recall that this cloud of comet particles was released into space in 1567. When such "comet bits" circle the sun for many hundreds of years, the tinier (dust grain) material tends to be pushed away from the sun and dispersed by radiation pressure. Conversely, because they are relatively unaffected by radiation pressure and leave the comet nucleus with less velocity than their smaller brethren do, the larger pebble-to-marble sized particles tend to linger for a much longer time.

The result could be meteors that are predominantly bright. Watch for the possibility of catching sight of a fireball or bolide (a meteor that silently explodes like a strobe along its path). About half might leave luminous trains lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Indeed, catching sight of even one such meteor will make the vigil of a cold November night worthwhile!

Nov. 18 early a.m., Asia/India/Indonesia

The "Main Event" in 2009 is expected to take place when the Earth has rotated about 12 to 14 hours after passing through the first round of comet dust from 1567. Astronomers Jeremie Vaubaillon (France), Mikhail Maslov (Russia), David Asher (Ireland), and Bill Cooke and Danielle Moser (NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office/MEO) are all in agreement that material that was ejected from the nucleus of Tempel-Tuttle during the years 1466 and 1533 will likely produce a very strong meteor display over much of Asia, India and Indonesia.

There is a high level of confidence that an outburst of bright meteors will occur. This is based mainly on the fact that last year, Earth encountered material that was shed by the comet in 1466 produced about 100 Leonids per hour. This year, Earth will cross through that same 1466 stream again, but much closer to the center of that particular comet cloud. In addition, at about the same time, the Earth will also be passing through dust ejected by the comet in 1533. The consensus forecast among the astronomers for this year suggests rates of anywhere from 130 to perhaps 300 Leonids per hour, but trying to hash out a specific number when two different streams literally coalesce with each other makes a forecast much more difficult to make; it could even be less or it could be much more.

The Earth is expected to pass through the densest parts of the two dust clouds at around 21:40 GMT on Nov. 17, though heavy meteor activity is possible for about an hour or two on either side of this time.

From much of Asia, India and Indonesia, the corresponding calendar date will be Nov. 18. It will be 12:40 a.m. in Moscow; 3:10 a.m. in Mumbai; 4:40 a.m. in Jakarta and 5:40 a.m. in Beijing, Unfortunately from Tokyo and across Australia, the sun will have already risen, effectively hiding the meteor outburst. Conversely, from Europe it will be after sunset on Tuesday evening, but although it will be nighttime, Leo will have not yet risen above the horizon, so the outburst will not visible.

Nov. 18 predawn hours, Europe/western and central Africa

As a late addition, Jeremie Vaubaillon also suggests that some Leonid activity "might" be generated by a very old trail of comet debris dating back to the year 1102. This material, however, is more than 900 years old and has made no less than 27 revolutions around the sun.

As a result, it could very well be almost completely dispersed and not provide any activity at all.

But at 3:29 GMT on Nov. 18, Earth will pass within 30,000 mi. (48,000 km) of the center of this trail. "The position of this very old trail is highly uncertain," notes Vaubaillon, "but if confirmed it may produce a noticeable activity. As a consequence, any event related to this one is highly valuable." Europeans, as well as western and central Africa are in the best viewing position should there be anything to see.

Preparing for your meteor watch

No two observers prepare for a meteor vigil the same way. It helps to have had a late afternoon nap, a shower, and to wear all fresh clothing.

Be sure to keep this in mind: at this time of year, meteor watching can be a long, cold business. Expect the ambient air temperature to be far below what your local radio or TV weathercaster predicts.

Watching a meteor shower consists of lying back, looking up at the sky . . . and waiting.

When you sit quite still, close to the rapidly cooling ground, you can become very chilled. You wait and you wait for meteors to appear. When they don't appear right away, and if you're cold and uncomfortable, you're not going to be looking for meteors for very long! Therefore, make sure you're warm and comfortable. Heavy blankets, sleeping bags, groundcloths, auto cushions, and pillows are essential equipment.

Warm cocoa or coffee can take the edge off the chill, as well as provide a slight stimulus. It's even better if you can observe with friends. That way, you can keep each other awake, as well as cover more sky.

Keep in mind that any local light pollution or obstructions like tall trees or buildings will reduce your making a meteor sighting. Give your eyes time to dark-adapt before starting. Probably the best bet is to rest on a lawn lounge, all the way back, so you can look up and see the whole sky. When you see a streak, mentally run it backwards across the sky. Do the same with the second and third and note where their paths cross. Right there will be the Sickle of Leo, and that's where the Leonid radiant will be. The constellation of Leo does not come fully into view above the east-northeast horizon until after 1 a.m. local time, so that would be the best time to concentrate on looking for Leonids.

Lastly, because the Leonids are moving along in their orbit around the sun in a direction opposite to that of Earth, they slam into our atmosphere nearly head-on, resulting in the fastest meteor velocities possible: 45 miles (72 km) per second. Such speeds tend to produce meteors with hues of white, blue, aquamarine and even green.

[Shebang]

Very interesting! Thanks. Can you point me to additional info describing/documenting the 1833 shower? I find that fascinating.

[livin4lax09]

I know. If I only had the money.

I can't complain about the D300. Most nights I go turn it off because I'm ready for bed and it's still taking pictures. Saturday night it took 104 photo's on a single charge. Sunday, I took 198 photo's of my daughter for her high school picture, then set up the D300 with that same battery and it took 93 photos - and was still going when I turned it off.

While that might not sound like much to those unfamiliar with invterval timer shooting, the camera never goes into standby (ie energy saving) mode when the interval timer is on. The camera stays powered up the entire time. So the battery is being drained the entire 93 minutes or 104 minutes that it's on. I don't know how many shots it can take when shooting in interval timer mode, because I always call it a night before the battery dies!

The D200 on the other hand is good for somewhere around 55 to 75 shots before the battery gives out on it. It amazes me how much more energy effiicient the D300 is. Never fear though, I have five batteries for the D200 and D300, so I can always swap out batteries and keep shooting if I'm so inclined.

check out the phottix battery grip on ebay. I got one and it's pretty much identical and functions just as well. I had to look hard to find the differences between my grip and a friend's mb-d10.

[Speed]

Here are the ones I got. No adjustments other than resizing for PR.

Ironically, the first and third ones are transient meteors, one of the random ones you can see on any given night. The other three are Leonids. Dawn and I saw some gorgeous ones, long and bright, but neither of my cameras caught any of them. You win some, you lose some.

It was also interesting that of the five I caught, they were all caught with the D300 - which was pointed north. The D200 was pointed south and didn't catch any. Strange since the meteors were coming out of the south east. Just one of those things.

The second one is breaking up at the end, which is characteristic of Leonids. The fourth and fifth ones are faint, in the middle of the frame.

[Speed]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...33_011114.html

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/head...t22jun99_2.htm

http://meteorshowersonline.com/leonids.html