The Leonid Meteor Shower.
On the nights of November 17th and 18th the Leonid Meteor Shower will peak in the wee hours of the morning on the Oregon Coast.
It’s maddeningly unpredictable. In 1933, the shower was described
‘like a child’s sparkler held against the sky.’
And in 1966 it burst forth over our central western states in the greatest meteor display in recorded history.
In other years, it failed to show up at all. Hence the term “unpredictable”. The comet was discovered December 19, 1865 by Ernst Wilhelm Liebrecht Tempel.
The Stuff of Comet Tempel-Tuttle
The Leonid’s are the stuff of Comet Tempel-Tuttle. First seen in the United States from the rooftop of the Naval Observatory by Horace P. Tuttle. He discovered his first comet in 1857. His discovery actually turned out to be Comet Brorsen. This was just as the Civil War ended.
This curious little man was an inveterate comet hunter. He was given permission by the superintendent to put his comet-seeking telescope on the observatory roof.
Note this in Tuttle’s log book from 1859:
NOTICE !! A comet is wanted immediately. Apply to H. P. Tuttle. P.S. He must have a Tail.*
Comet Tempel-Tuttle has a period of 33 years. It was last seen in 1966. When the comet is in Earth’s vicinity the Leonid’s tend to get pretty intense, literally, so mark the year 1999 on your calendars. The name, by the way, is derived from the direction of the shower’s radiant, which lies in the constellation Leo.
Naval Observatory Library
The above was derived from notes gathered by a USNO staffer who is working on a story of the life of H.P. Tuttle.
Tuttle’s observing logs are preserved in the Naval Observatory Library. They are filled with the curious, amusing scribblings of an inveterate comet-hunter who observed even from the deck of an iron-clad during the Civil War.
A bachelor all his life, Tuttle frequently signed his name in the shapes of small comets, and is buried in an unmarked grave in Falls Church, Virginia.