From Torrid Taurids To Limpy Leonids

Well after taking more then 800 images, going through 2 camera batteries and spending 6 hours in the cold dark early morning hours of November 17, the supposed peak of the Leonid shower, I only came away with a couple of images of small Leonid meteors, now I saw quite a few but they were all but washed out by the glare of the Moonlight.

Another reason for the poor showing besides the bright Moon taking away the contrast of the meteors is the fact that the debris trail left behind by comet Tempel/Tuttle is scattered in pockets, unless we, the Earth, happen to be traveling through one of these populated areas we don't see many meteors.

Now the good news. I was walking to my car behind my office at work around 10:00 that same morning when by chance I noticed in the SW, an area that would have been just over Leo's head , a Leonid fireball, it was in the process of falling as I looked up, and then stopped, then......puff..... a white circle formed, probably the fireball breaking up, I thought great no camera, no one is going to believe this. Then I thought, my cell phone, it has a camera, pulled it out and was lucky enough to get the trail and fireball remnant.

The Next major meteor shower is the Geminids Meteor Shower. Peaks December 13 around 2:00 am, and again we have an almost Full Moon, but this shower is generally one of the more consistent ones, the average is 50 meteors an hour, but with the Moon expect to see only the brighter ones, hey still worth a look. Look to the east for the constellation Gemini around 10:00 pm on the 12th for the show to start.

As I mentioned in my previous post the next major celestial show is the conjunction of the crescent Moon, Jupiter and Venus December 1. Should be a show stopper, with the crescent Moon complete with earthshine, Jupiter and Venus forming a triangle. Actually you can go out just after Sunset right now and see Venus below and to the right of Jupiter. As the days pass you will see the two planets drawing closer together till on November 30 the Moon shows up below the planets, then the conjunction December 1. Speaking of conjunctions I thought I would post an image I took back in July, one of my favorites. It was almost surreal to see Saturn, then Mars then Regulus all in a straight line, then you add the crescent Moon for effect and you get cool.

I'll leave you now with an animation of that gathering.