For astronomers and casual observers of the night sky alike, the highlight of the month has got to be the Leonids meteor shower which is due to peak shortly before dawn on Tuesday 19th.

The Leonids - Meteor Shower

Meteor showers occur on most months throughout the year. But this shower could be really spectacular with anything between 200 and 4,000 meteors per hour.

The Leonids are very fast (158,000 mph) and very bright. The trains from these meteors can last from a few seconds to several minutes.

There will be two Full Moons during the month, on the 1st and 30th. The second moon is known as a blue moon.

So, cloud cover permitting, a memorable display is almost certain.

You should be able to view the Leonids any time after 11:30 PM Monday night.

The brightest of the meteors will occur just before dawn, with the colour changing from red to blue-white, or even green, as the night wears on.

Viewing conditions for the Leonids will be enhanced by the fact that the Moon will be just a few days old.

Blue moon

Unusually there will be two Full Moons during the month, on the 1st and 30th. The second Full Moon in a calendar month is known as a ‘blue moon’.

Watch out for a separate article on this later in the month.

Richard Angwin - Wiltshire weather is his expertise.

At the beginning of the month the morning sky is noteworthy for the close proximity of Mercury to the much brighter Venus (magnitude -3.8) in the eastern sky.

The first of the planets to appear in the evening sky is Saturn which rises in Taurus, in the east, soon after sunset.

The brightest evening planet is Jupiter (magnitude -2.3) in Gemini.

NASA Activity

The International Space Station receives another visit from the Space Shuttle Endeavor on the 29th.

The purpose of the ten day mission is to deliver experiment and storage racks for the U.S. Laboratory.