Home > Ephemeris Program, Meteor Shower, Observing > Ephemeris: 11/17/2023 – Observing this weekend’s Leonid meteor shower

Ephemeris: 11/17/2023 – Observing this weekend’s Leonid meteor shower

November 17, 2023

This is Ephemeris for Friday, November 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 30 minutes, setting at 5:12, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:43. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 8:45 this evening.

The Leonid meteor shower will reach peak this weekend. The normal peak will be actually this evening before the radiant, where the meteors seem to come from, rise which they will do at 11 pm. So tomorrow morning it would be a good time to see them. We only expect about 15 meteors an hour at peak. There is a possibility of another peak on the 21st which is Tuesday morning just before dawn composed of supposedly bright meteors from the passage of the comet crossed Earth’s orbit in 1767. So if it’s clear, and you’re willing to go outdoors and see what you can see of the Leonid meteor shower. The Leonids get really spectacular about every 33 years, and we’re about 8 or 9 years from now.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Leo rising at around 2 a.m. on the morning of November 20. Note the radiant .
Leo seen at around 2 a.m. on the morning of November 18-21. Note the radiant in the sickle asterism of Leo. Created using Looking Up, my own program.
Leonid meteor shower as seen from space
The Leonid meteor shower as seen from space. The time is set for today so the Earth’s blue dot is lost in the stream of meteors crossing the Earth’s orbit (3rd one out from the Sun) just above 9 o’clock. The long ellipse is the orbit of Comet Tempel-Tuttle and the purple dot near the aphelion neat Uranus’ orbit is the calculated current position of the comet. The flurry of dots is the calculated positions of meteors that whose orbits have been calculated. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: NASA’s CAMS video camera surveillance network, and were calculated by meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. This visualization is developed and hosted by Ian Webster.

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