Leonid meteor shower on November 17th and 18th, 2022
The pinnacle of the Leonid meteor shower occurs in the hours a little before midnight on Thursday and continues into the early hours of Friday when the moon is not visible in the night sky. After midnight, the waning crescent Moon that is 36% illuminated will begin to ascend. Keep an eye out for the 10–20 “shooting stars” that it produces every hour. You won’t need binoculars or a telescope to find them; all you need is a sky that’s relatively black. The meteor shower is known for having bright meteors with continuous trains, which indicates that you’ll be able to see a few of them flash for about a second as they streak across the night sky as they pass overhead.
What to Look For in the Starry Skies The Current Week
Even though the month of November is a good time to go stargazing, the upcoming week promises to be exceptional. This week is the height of the Leonid meteor shower, and it also happens to be the week when you will have the best opportunity to watch the sparkling bright stars of winter rise in the east just as darkness falls. Even if it’s not as abundant as it would be in a typical year, there are a lot of reasons to go outside and marvel at the sky during this week when it’s at its height. In addition to the fact that the Leonid meteor shower’s peak night coincides with moonless night skies, this meteor shower is well-known for the meteor storms that it occasionally produces. Although it is quite unlikely that this will happen this year, there are reasons to anticipate that it will be greater than it typically is.
Our moon has reached the final quarter moon phase today, which means that it will rise around midnight and set around midday. This phase of the moon occurs every few days. As a result, not only will the night sky be illuminated by the moon long after midnight for the remainder of the week, but you will also be able to see the crescent moon and full moon setting in the western sky early in the morning.
