How to View Meteor Showers |
How to View Meteor Showers - How to "See More Meteors"
What are meteor showers?Meteor showers are annual events, during which more shooting stars than usual can be seen over a period of several nights, each meteor appearing to point back to (or "radiate from") a particular point in the sky. These meteor showers actually occur because the earth, in its annual orbit around the sun, passes through a particular band of dust particles called a "meteoroid stream". During the course of a full solar year - when the Earth goes one full revolution around the Sun - we encounter many such meteoroid streams large and small!Meteoroid streams are in fact the debris trails left behind by periodic comets, or in rare cases (e.g., the Geminids) by asteroids. Meteoroid streams can be visualized (in the words of Stuart Atkinson) as "rivers of crumbling comet dust". However, though streams may derive from a comet, there are forces which constantly act on the particles in meteoroid streams to move them around: thus, the meteor shower's "orbit" need not correspond with a parent comet's orbit! And it is in fact this very motion that makes meteoroid streams and their associated showers so interesting... Want to read about the LEONIDS?Before delving into detail on the exciting area of observing regular annual showers, many Websurfers may wish to read more about the much publicized Leonid METEOR STORM...Here is an entire page devoted to the subject of meteor storms and how to observe them. And in particular, look for our critical list of Web links related to the Leonid meteor storms of 1998 through 2002! http://www.meteorobs.org/storms.html#leonids Note that the Leonids are not just an occasional storm, however... They are also a fairly reliable annual meteor shower! Where can I see meteor showers?Meteoroid streams are always much wider than the Earth. Because of this, you will see a shower's meteors scattered over your whole sky, not for just one night but for from 3 up to 60 nights each year! Thus you don't need to face any one direction to see a meteor shower well! Nor will a meteor shower only be visible from one area of the earth. Unlike geographically narrow astronomical events like solar eclipses, lunar occultations, or bright fireballs, a meteor shower will often be visible over much of the Earth's surface!However, not all of Earth will be able to see a given meteor shower. That is because the bulk of our globe shields some areas of Earth's surface from the impact of meteoroid particles - in effect, some area of the world map is always in the Earth's "shadow" with respect to any meteoroid stream. This "shadow" is bounded by the area of Earth in which a certain point on the Celestial Sphere (the "bowl" of the Heavens) is not visible. This special point is unique to each meteor shower, and is characterized as being the point in the sky to which all visible tracks in the heavens of meteors from the shower - no matter where they are seen in the sky, or from what point on Earth - all seem to trace back to. This point is the "radiant" of a shower! Finally, because there is often fine-grained structure within meteoroid streams, which the earth will "sample" as it passes through them from hour to hour, not all areas of the Earth will necessarily see the exact same show from a meteor shower! For instance, the peak activity for a particular shower may occur while it is daylight in your area of the earth! Or it may be dark during the shower's peak "maximum", but the shower radiant point may be low on your horizon, reducing the number of meteors you see - or again below the horizon, making it impossible to see any meteors from the shower at that particular hour. When can I see meteor showers?Among the best known annual meteor showers are the Perseids in August, the Leonids in November, and the Geminids in December. But there are actually showers of varying lesser strengths throughout the year!The following table is adapted from IMO's Meteor Calendar, 2002. (Mirror site here.) How can I see more meteors?Observing meteors is simple: just lie out on a lawn chair or sleeping bag under the night sky, and look up! However, if you want to have the best chance of seeing meteors - more than a few per hour - there are some things you can do to "improve the meteor show":
Why should I try amateur observing?Few amateur astronomers (or even professionals) realize it, but by observing meteor showers, we are really observing the material, dynamics, and evolution of our solar system! By watching meteors, you are collecting first-hand data on the debris of comets, often the most well-preserved "original bodies" in our solar system.Not only that, but there are many forces in our solar system which only affect particles the size of meteoroids. By collecting data on how these forces affect meteor showers over time, we are in effect looking back at the forces which dominated our solar system when it was nothing else but a cloud of dust and gas circling the new-born Sun... Pretty amazing for "mere" lawn-chair skygazing!
How can I learn more?To learn more about the best-kept secret of amateur astronomy - meteor observing - check out the following site, for the "North American Meteor Network". NAMN is a small, friendly organization which provides excellent introductory materials (for people in ALL areas of the Earth) on amateur meteor observing for fun and Science:http://www.namnmeteors.org/
To learn about watching the (annual) Leonid shower in
particular, try Gary Kronk's very readable "Annual Meteor Shower
Calendar", under "November" for the Leonids:
North American observers should also peruse the American Meteor
Society's fact-filled pages about meteor observing, fireballs, radio
meteors and other topics, at:
Finally for yet more information of a technical nature on Leonid
outbursts, including riveting reports of observing efforts in 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, try Dr. Peter Jenniskens' site at NASA:
Last but not least, another excellent site giving predictions of a
possible Leonid outburst in 2006, is scientists' David
Asher and Rob McNaught's pages on the Armaugh Observatory site:
If you are interested in subscribing to the 'meteorobs' mailing list, you may use the MeteorObs Subscription Web form now! Otherwise, you may post a (moderated) question to the list even if you are not a subscriber. Information on the Latest Meteor ShowersIf you want to learn more about meteor showers which are coming up this month, try browsing the latest issue of the regular "NAMN Notes" newsletter put out by the North American Meteor Network! There you can find in-depth discussions of interesting upcoming meteor showers, news related to the science of meteors, and also upcoming social and academic events which may be of interest to amateurs!http://www.namnmeteors.org/namnnotes.html
Also highly recommended is the "Weekly Meteor Outlook", written for
the American Meteor Society by prolific observer and international
meteor notable Bob Lunsford, usually updated weekly on the Web at: Clear skies! Lew Gramer <dedalus@alum.mit.edu> |