Columnist Susan Snyder: Sky offers constellation prizes

Friday, Nov. 16, 2001 | 9:24 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder @lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

When the biggest light show of the year happens this weekend, Bruce Wingate and his coworkers plan to be sitting on the Lake Mead shore to get the best view.

The annual Leonid meteor shower peaks around 2 a.m. Sunday. But this year's event is supposed to be more spectacular than any seen in the past 35 years.

"It's supposed to be a storm. I've never seen a meteor storm, and I've been in astronomy for 30 years," said Wingate, who works at Scope City in Las Vegas. "For me this will be a new astronomical event."

The Leonids are named for the constellation Leo because they seem to start there. Leo is centered around a sickle-shaped configuration of stars in the eastern sky.

The sickle, which looks like a sideways question mark, composes the head and mane of the lion. Regulus, a very bright star, is at the base of this question mark. The rest of the lion extends east. The Leonids seem to emanate from the cutting edge of the sickle shape.

In reality the shooting stars are visible because the Earth passes through the dust tail of the Tempel-Tuttle comet. Among this year's meteors are leftover material from the comet's 1699 and 1866 passes, experts say.

During the 1966 Leonid storm Western U.S. residents saw about 100,000 meteors an hour, reports show. Residents should expect to see about 2,500 an hour this year, Wingate said.

"It's hard to tell. So many things affect it," he said.

A hazy sky could alter the show, as autumn clouds do in other regions.

Historically the Leonids always have put on quite a show. Chinese astronomers first recorded seeing the storm in 902 A.D., according to information on an Internet site from the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

In 1799 the spectacle startled stargazers in the Americas and wowed German astronomer Alexander von Humboldt, who recorded the event during a trip to Venezuela.

The Leonids of 1833, the NASA site says, was very intense and helped scientists form the first theory on the origin of meteors. Agnes Clarkes, a Victorian astronomy writer, described the 1833 shower as "a tempest of falling stars" that "broke over the Earth. The sky was scored in every direction with shining tracks and illuminated with majestic fireballs."

The storm should rise in the eastern sky, meaning areas east of the valley's lights should provide the best viewing. The north shoreline of Lake Mead is perfect.

"Sometimes it's difficult to tell where the night sky ends and the mountains begin out there," Wingate said.

But if a haze has settled into the Las Vegas Valley the area out near Red Rock National Conservation Area could be good, as that is the high side of the valley. Observers may see more by being able to see over the haze, he said.

Betting against the elements is all part of the adventure. So grab a blanket, a chair, a thermos of something hot and find your spot by about midnight. You don't need a telescope or binoculars for this event, Wingate said.

Just sit back, and look up.