By Suzanne Ma
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Escape from the bright city lights tonight, if you want to catch a glimpse of one of the best annual meteor showers.
The Leonid meteor shower can best be seen from Inwood Hill Park, according to astronomer Jason Kendall.
But Manhattanites will have to bring along warm jackets and lots of coffee. Stargazers will only be able to catch a good look late tonight and into the early morning.
"This 'Forever Wild' park has no streetlamps and we are 200 feet above the city lights below," Kendall wrote on his Web site.
"Dark and wonderful, it is a great way to experience the night sky right near home."
Kendall is asking all interested stargazers to meet him at the entrance of Inwood Hill Park at Payson and Beak Streets at 9 p.m. tonight.
At least one other group is heading to Rockaway Park beach for the show.
With the highest number of meteors streaking across the skies this afternoon around 4:45 p.m., the shower’s peak will hardly be visible for viewers in North America and Europe.
But experts say the shower should continue well into the evening.
"We're predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia," says Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
"Our forecast is in good accord with independent theoretical work by other astronomers."
The Leonids got their name because they seem to radiate from the constellation Leo.
Like other meteor showers, Leonids happen when Earth collides with a trail of debris left in the wake of a comet orbiting the sun.
The debris hits the atmosphere and vaporizes, giving us our meteor shower: dramatic streaks of light and the occasional fireball that can leave a smoky trail for several minutes.
The debris from the comet is usually just particles of dust no larger than grains of sand.
For the 2009 Leonids, Earth will plow through a 62,000-mile-wide cloud of debris left behind when comets passed in 1467 and 1533.
NASA has a neat map that shows us where in the world you’ll get the best show.
