Want to get up early? Leonid Meteor Shower set for this weekend

by Scott Sistek / KOMO News

One of the benefits of the mild weather of November is that the sky will be clear for the annual Leonid meteor shower that will culminate this weekend.

This meteor shower comes as the Earth crosses the dust trail left by comet Tempel-Tuttle, according to SpaceWeather.com. In some years, this can lead to spectacular meteor and fireball shows, but this year should not be part of it.

"The Earth will thread the needle between dense filaments, picking up a smaller amount of dust," writes Dr. Tony Phillips with SpaceWeather.com.

Nevertheless, scientists predict about 15 meteors per hour and any chance of seeing a "shooting star", especially in the usually cloudy northwest, should be appreciated.

For this shower, technically it is possible to see them anytime between midnight and dawn, but the best chance of spotting them will be before sunrise on Saturday and Sunday – it's not going to happen. 39 is not really a "late eve" event. "get up early" event. The moon sets around 12:48 on Saturday morning and around 1:52 on Sunday and it is always useful to avoid the passage of this great bright moon.

MORE | EarthSky, org – All you need to know about the meteor shower Leonid

Look in the southeast sky to find the constellation Leo (why they are called "Leonids") and the meteors will seem to come from there. The best viewing conditions are to find the darkest skies away from the city lights. However, there will be some fog in places, so the valleys are not the best. The sky should be clearer Sunday morning than early Saturday morning, as we are still removing waste from Friday's weather system.

In addition, Phillips points out that there are some other celestial objects interesting to spot. On the one hand, there is a new comet that you can spot with binoculars. And Venus – the bright star in the eastern sky, will be very close to the Spica star.

If you have pictures of Leonids, we would like to see them! You can email them to [email protected] or post them on our social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter.