Astronomical League Certification Congratulations to Jerry Persall, who received his Astronomical League Double Star Certificate. The certificate is awarded for observing 100 selected double star systems. Speaker Our speaker was Kevin Marvel from the American Astronomical Society who spoke about the Leonid Meteor shower, due to peak last night through tonight. The Leonid meteors come from the debris orbit of comet 55 Tempel Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 33 years. At 5-10 per hour, sporadic meteors are the kind we can see any time.
Showers can produce many hundreds of meteorites per hour.
Kevin showed us a Starry Night demo of the earth intersecting the orbit of Tempel Tuttle. The best time to view the Leonids is from 2 am until sunrise. This is the time when the observer is on the leading edge of the earth that is hitting the debris stream. Tonight's meteorites will appear to originate from the constellation Leo, although the meteorites may be seen in any section of the sky. Interest in meteorites has increased in two areas.