those BALLS OF FIRE are back

it's that time of the year again.And it's time for yet another display of those spectacular Leonid showers.These meteor showers(seen basically as streaks of light), and if large enough sometimes individually described as shooting stars, are basically a display of atmospheric fireworks.They are basically caused by rocky remnants left on the orbital path of earth by some other astronomical objects such as comets burning up upon encountering the earthly atmosphere.Leonids are so called as they originate ( that is enter the Earth's atmosphere) in the area of the sky demarcated by the constellation of Leo.Due to the regularity of Earth's orbital period and path, these showers (in particular, in the month of November) are caused almost always by the comet described by the name Comet 55P, Tempel-Tuttle.Thus as one would conjecture they are most prominent when the comet has just visited it's perihelion(that is it's closest approach to the Sun.),- as this would be the time that most of the cometary debris would be floating closely packed in interplanetary circumsolar space.

As the comet has not been in close proximity to the Sun for quite some time, the 2007 Leonids are expected to be a somewhat modest spectacle in comparison to the previous season's fiery display.but they are still expected to be quite a sight nonetheless.the showers peaked this last week and are still visible to the keen observer.all one requires is a comfortable place to lie down somewhere below the open sky.keeping an uninterrupted view of the whole sky while lying down is essential to the act of catching a meteor(/shooting star) doing the burning ('Great Balls of Fire') act.Binoculars are a strict no-no, as are telescopes, as this would narrow the field of observation and greatly reduce the observer's capability to spot a shooting star and also make it difficult for the observer to track it once he spots it(if he succeeds at all in spotting it using binoculars in the first place!).

as described before, focus on the constellation of Leo from where these shooting stars shall appear to streak out.do note that the shooting stars shall only appear to be streaking out from Leo and might make their brightness more apparent once they are further away from the constellation.Hence it is essential to keep a look at that entire region of sky(and not limit oneself to Leo alone) to have a proper perspective of the showers.If you have trouble locating Leo, but are comfortable identifying the planets, Leo is the (abnormally big bladed) sickle shaped constellation appearing above Saturn.
so i guess things are looking up this week, and maybe we should too.....
Surjodeb Basu (/Dev).





Some amazing images of actual Leonids in action in different parts of the world taken with different camera exposures:
(Click on them to enlarge)