On the morning experts had predicted the meteors to fall, Eliot Herman made sure his backyard in Tucson, Arizona, was wide awake. Even if he wasn’t standing out in the cold autumn air, his array of automated, ultra-wide-angle lenses were capturing stills of the clear desert sky. He was hunting for the Leonids, a meteor shower that arrives every November and promises uncanny meteor storms every few decades.
“The Leonids are always early morning before dawn,” he told The Epoch Times. He noted they are the “greenest” meteors he sees. He’s seen quite a few.
This year, astronomers expect the Leonids to collide with Earth’s atmosphere from Nov. 6–30, reaching their peak around the morning of Nov. 17–18. While no great celestial storms are predicted for 2026, scientists have been caught off-guard by the Leonids before. They’re regarded as one of the year’s most thrilling meteor showers, sputtering a modest 10 to 15 meteors per hour typically. They fly fast and colorfully. But they’re also legendary for dropping fierce torrents every 33 years. During these cyclical storms, observers have witnessed thousands of fireballs falling like rain.
It didn’t storm that night when Herman had his cameras set up in his backyard a few seasons ago, though he did photograph several meteors. The last time the Leonids arrived in great droves was in 2001, though that was a drop in the bucket compared to past decades. One mid-November night in 1966, sky watchers in the United States saw thousands fall per minute over the span of 15 minutes. That mirrored “the night when the stars fell” in 1833, when witnesses watched more than 100,000 meteors falling per hour. It gave a real sense of the Earth moving through space.
The falling shots of light are caused by broken pieces of comets or asteroids colliding with Earth’s atmosphere. This cosmic debris flows along vast streams through space following the orbits of their parent objects. Where Earth intersects those streams, which it does periodically each year, we have meteor showers. The cosmic crumbs ignite from friction as they zip through the atmosphere at up to 45 miles per second. They look like shots of bright light.
All these meteors travel in parallel, following the same path their comet blazed ages ago. But when you look back toward where they came from, they all appear to radiate from a single point in space. Astronomers call that point the radiant. The Leonids appear to shoot from a point in the constellation Leo. That’s why they’re called the Leonids.
Of course, there is no tangible association between the meteors and said constellation, which sits hundreds of light years away. The Leonids only seem to converge at that faraway point, while their true origin loops the sun every 33 years; they broke off of 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, a relatively small comet with a nucleus 2.24 miles across. Its frozen surface shed particles as it neared the sun, leaving a vast complex of matter stretching millions of miles long.
Traditionally, the Leonids stormed around the years when Tempel-Tuttle returned, but that isn’t always the case; it has disappointed the public more than once. It’s due back in 2031.
This spatial geometry sets the stage for how we can observe the Leonids from Earth. It’s optimal to view the whole sky rather than just the radiant point. Meteors will present their lengthy profiles when shooting outward. They will look like stunted blips near the constellation Leo, or might not appear at all, due to an effect of perspective called foreshortening. So grab a lawn chair and blanket and kick back or, if you’re photographing, as Herman did, adopt a wide-angle lens that will capture a wide panorama. The meteors could shoot anywhere.
The one big danger when hunting meteors is the moon. Will it be full, waxing, waning, or new? Its light can wash out shooting stars and reduce their visible numbers. Fortunately, the first quarter moon will be setting when the Leonids’ radiant rises. Constellation Leo will climb to its height around 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. (your local time), and that will give viewers the most surrounding sky to search. But anytime after midnight would be worthwhile.
It’s essential to find a dark spot with open skies. If you live outside the city, that’s perfect. Otherwise, search for a place with minimal light pollution. The one wildcard, of course, is the weather, which can cause cloudy skies.
For anyone who can’t avoid the moon during the Leonids, Herman the astrophotographer advises them to embrace the situation. Include the moon like you own it; a few meteors will probably still crop up in your photos.
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