A woodcut of the 1799 Leonids. In reality, Leonid meteors do not appear on curved paths. Curved trails are extremely rare and physically very difficult to produce, given the high momentum of the meteoric body. The meteors excellently depict the radiant of the Leonids.
Meteors travel small angular distances when near the radiant due to foreshortening.
Meteor further away from the radiant have longer paths. The photo was taken with a fish-eye lens on Ilford Delta 400 film. The exposure time was 10 minutes. The maximum brightness of the fireballs was about -8. Leonids are caused by cometary particles.