November meteors

[Alex Pratt]

The southern Taurids continue into late November and the northern Taurids have now joined them, visible up to the first week of December.

Both Taurid streams are linked to comet 2P/Encke. Their meteors have relatively slow geocentric velocities of 27 and 29 km/s and produce low ZHRs of 5, at best. Not very inspiring, but it is impressive to see a bright Taurid trundling across the sky and the IMO’s Meteor Calendar for 2025 suggests this year could bring a “Taurid swarm” of brighter meteors, some fireball class.

Here’s a mag -2 NTA that I recorded on Oct 31. It exhibited multiple flaring during its duration of 2.2s (travelling L to R).

Throughout November we also have the Leonid meteors, the swiftest of the major showers, with a Vg of 70 km/s. Maximum is expected on the evening of Nov 17, although ZHR could only be 15. The IMO’s Meteor Calendar notes there might be activity from a number of dust trails:

Nov 09, 22hUT (1167 dust trail)
Nov 15, 03hUT (1633 dust trail)
Nov 17, 10hUT (nodal maximum at sol long = 234◦.95)
Nov 17, 18hUT (nodal maximum at sol long = 235◦.27)
Nov 17, 19hUT (1699 dust trail at sol long = 235◦.341)
Nov 17, 22h40mUT (1699 dust trail at sol long = 235◦.482)

Expected rates are uncertain.

Spoiler alert – annual Leonid activity should increase as we approach 2031 when parent comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle returns, although meteor analysts tell us not to expect meteor storms such as in 1999, etc. They might only rival the Perseids or Geminids, nothing more.

Alex.

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