How to see the Leonid meteor shower peaking this weekend

Bundle up and head outside in the wee hours of the morning this weekend to check out some shooting stars. 

The Leonid meteor shower peaks early on Saturday morning. If estimates hold, people in rural areas with little light pollution should be able to see about 15 meteors per hour under good weather conditions. 

The best time for people in the Northern Hemisphere to head outside should be at around 3 a.m. ET, when moonlight won’t interfere too much with viewing the shower, according to NASA.

“The Leonids are best seen after midnight your local time, once the Moon has set,” NASA said in a skywatching video. 

The space agency also says that it’s possible to see some Leonids on nights other than the peak if Saturday morning won’t work with your schedule.

“You should also be able to see some Leonids on the 18th, 19th, and 20th,” NASA added in the video. “The maximum for any of these nights is only 10 Leonids per hour.”

The Leonids appear each year when Earth passes through the field of dust left behind by Comet 55P Tempel-Tuttle during its journey around the sun.

Those bits of debris enter Earth’s atmosphere, effectively burning up in the process and creating those streaks we see as shooting stars. 

If you want to head out and see some meteors this weekend, try your best to get to a dark area and let your eyes adjust for about 30 minutes at least. 

Once your eyes are adjusted, look up, lie back, and try to take in as much of the sky as possible, keeping in mind that the radiant point for the shower is the constellation Leo. 

Even if you’re in a light-polluted area, you still might be able to see some meteors during the peak of the shower. If you are in a city, try to get somewhere as dark as possible — like a park — with a clear view of the sky. 

You likely won’t see many meteors from a city, but it’s always worth a try. 

While this year’s Leonid meteor shower will be on the average side, sometimes the shower really puts on a show.

“Every 33 years, or so, viewers on Earth may experience a Leonid storm that can peak with hundreds to thousands of meteors seen per hour depending on the location of the observer,” NASA said.

“A meteor storm versus a shower is defined as having at least 1,000 meteors per hour. Viewers in 1966 experienced a spectacular Leonid storm: thousands of meteors per minute fell through Earth’s atmosphere during a 15 minute period. There were so many meteors seen that they appeared to fall like rain. The last Leonid meteor storm took place in 2002.”