the leonids are back. if you see only one meteor shower this year, this is the one, though you’re going to have to break out the thermos and a pair of long underwear this time around.
a year ago, i drove up to ballground, georgia (about 25 miles north of Marietta on I-575) will bill and hans. avoiding curious local cops and the occasional reckless driver, we settled on a spot somewhere between not-really-anywhere and pretty-much-nowhere and pulled the car to the grass-and-gravel curb. they were everywhere, these flitting spots of reflected light. rarely would they be directly in your field of view, but rather to the periphery. you’d catch them out of the corner of your eye. and we were lucky, because for all of the seeming cold and late hour, it really wasn’t all that chilly and the next day wasn’t all that painful.
this time, the leonids are again giving the convenience of the hour to mainland europe. a lucky londoner will be able to turn up his gaze around 11pm and get an eyeful of cosmic entertainment. and what do we get? you can check for your self here, but atlanta’s best time for viewing will be somewhere around 5:22am. that’s AM. with an A. (shudder.) and it’s much colder this year than last.
but is it worth it? that’s up to you. even with the early hour, this will be the best opportunity to see the pretty debris for tens of years. and if you’ve never seen shooting stars at a rate of three or four a minute, you should. after all, the cosmos doesn’t put on a floor show just everyday…
