The Sky This Week, 2012 November 13 – 20 — Naval Oceanography Portal

Moonlight shouldn’t interfere with this year’s display of the annual Leonids meteor shower. Conveniently this display peaks on the night of the 17th/18th, with best viewing times between 2:00 am and morning twilight on the 18th. … This year expectations are for a more “normal” display with perhaps 20 or so meteors visible per hour in a dark location, but the shower is notoriously unpredictable in its “off” years, so you may see many more or possibly many fewer. The meteors themselves are very swift, traversing 20 or 30 degrees of the sky in a fleeting instant, with the brighter members leaving persistent smoke trains. The shower radiant is in the “head” of the constellation of Leo, the Lion. [mjh: look for the backward question mark that forms Leo’s head (body to the left/north).]

The Sky This Week, 2012 November 13 – 20 — Naval Oceanography Portal