If you want to watch shooting stars in the night sky, you need patience - and a little luck.
But it helps to know when and where it is most likely to see the Leonid meteor shower.
Munich - The stars have always fascinated people.
Shooting stars in particular are a popular sky spectacle.
In November the Leonids race across the night sky again, but this meteor shower cannot be seen equally strong every year.
Where and when the shooting stars in the night sky can best be observed.
Leonids: What is behind the streams of falling stars?
There are always shooting stars. But their frequency is very different. When they move across the night sky particularly often, astronomers speak of streams of falling stars - as in the case of the Leonids. Basically, these are meteors. Laypeople often imagine large boulders racing through space. But the meteor streams of the Leonids are often tiny particles that penetrate from space into the earth's atmosphere and burn up there. Some of the particles are only as big as the head of a pin, but travel at high speeds of ten to 70 kilometers per second, as described by astronomers from the Kuffner Observatory in Vienna. As a rule, they burn up on their way through the earth's atmosphere. If one of the boulders makes it to the groundastronomers speak of a meteorite. Incidentally, the name of the Leonids was not chosen by chance: They are named after the constellation Leo (Latin: Leo) in which they appear. Astronomers speak of radians, as the astronomical classic Kosmos Himmelsjahr explains.
The Leonid Current cannot always be seen with the same intensity.
Because the meteors that enter the earth's atmosphere come from the comet Tempel-Tuttle.
Sometimes the earth meets a particle cloud of this comet on its orbit, then the Leonid falling stars are particularly common.
This is the case every 33 years, as the astronomer Heinrich Olbers predicted over a hundred years ago.
This is reported by the
Wissenschaft.de
portal
.
This year, therefore, relatively few Leonid shooting stars can be seen in the firmament.
Shooting stars: this is how you can watch the Leonids
Between November 6th and 30th, astronomers expect an increased occurrence of shooting stars. The climax of the Leonids this year will be on the night of November 17th, as the Kosmos Himmelsjahr reveals. The meteors are easier to observe in the second half of the night; the probability is highest around three o'clock at night. This is because the falling star observers then look in the "direction of travel" of the earth, as the Kuffner observatory explains. As a result, the meteor showers come towards the sky observers and are therefore easier to see. However, predicting shooting stars is the same as forecasting the weather: not everything can be foreseen with absolute precision. The shooting stars don't (always) stick to deadlines.
In the past, shooting stars fans still had to inspect the sky with star maps. Today there are practical apps for this, such as the Google Sky Map, Star Walk 2 or the Star Atlas. This can be used to search for the constellation Leo, so that sky watchers can easily find the right direction in the starry sky. Of course, it is best to observe the sky from a place with little light in order to minimize light pollution. Elevations or mountains are ideal. Then patience is required: the eyes need a certain time to get used to the darkness. In order to spot a falling star, observers have to be very attentive. The Leonids are particularly fast and can therefore only be seen for a short time. If you don't want to wait until November, you have the opportunity to spot shooting stars beforehand.All year round, observers can see glowing tails in the sky - sometimes more, sometimes less. Other famous shooting stars in Germany are, for example, the Perseids in July and August, the Draconids and Orionids in October and the Geminids in December.
