Leonid Meteor Earlier This Week

The clouds were too thick and the chance of rain was too high for me to leave my camera out last night, but earlier this week when I was looking for Taurid meteors I caught this Leonid meteor as well.  Although the generally recognized peak of the shower was a few hours ago, the International Meteor Organization notes that there may be a second peak of activity in 2-3 days:

"The most recent perihelion passage of the Leonids' parent comet, 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, in 1998 may be nearly 15 years ago now, but the shower's activity has continued to be fascinatingly variable from year to year recently. This year seems unlikely to produce enhanced rates, but there may be more than one peak. Apart from the nodal timing above, Mikhail Maslov has suggested that there could be a peak with ZHRs of ∼ 5—10 at 21h UT on November 17, followed by another increase to ZHRs of ∼ 10—15, probably of below-average brightness meteors, on November 20, at ∼ 06h UT (the latter due to the 1400 AD dust-trail)." 

"ZHRs for the nodal peak are liable to be "normal", so probably about 15±5. November's waxing Moon is excellent news for either date, as it will set before or soon after the time the Leonid radiant first becomes usefully-observable, by local midnight or so north of the equator, afterwards for places further south. All observing methods can be employed. While these potential maximum timings do not exclude all others, if they prove correct, the two November 17 ones would be best-detectable from North American, and Middle East to Asian longitudes respectively, while that on November 20 would be similarly available from places between eastern North America east to extreme western North African longitudes."

Here on the West Coast of North America, if the skies are clear I'll try to capture that second peak as the radiant point of the shower is rising above the horizon to the East, in the 10 pm – midnight time frame.

Early Leonid Meteor

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