Image
© A. Scott Murrell, Sky & Telescope Magazine
The annual Leonid meteor shower peaks this year on Nov. 17th when Earth passes through a thicket of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Earth is expected to miss the densest swarms of comet dust, making this an off-year for Leonids with a maximum of only 20 meteors per hour. The best time to look is during the dark hours before sunrise on Wednesday.

Bonus:
Turn up the volume and play this movie of an early Leonid recorded on Nov. 14th by amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft in New Mexico. The soundtrack is a forward scatter meteor echo--that is, a radio signal from a distant TV transmitter bouncing off the meteor's ionized trail. See? Even one Leonid can be enough.