Three cameras manned by students of Astronomy 1, and under the direction of Dr. W. J. Fisher, will be set to watch the skies from the College Observatory for the Leonid meteer shower, which is expected to occur any night from now until Tuesday.
The shower, which has taken place every 33 years for more than ten centuries, failed to appear when last due in 1899, which was attributed to the hugo planet Jupiter being too close to their orbit, and pulling them out of their course.
This year, however, Dr. Fisher, who is known as Harvard's "meteor fisherman," believes that such perturbation will be less, and that, if the weather is favorable, it may be possible to photograph the shower. As the stream of meteers is so rich that it takes several years to pass by the earth, astronomers have been on the watch for it since 1929. If, on any one of the following nights, a brilliant display is noted, then Dr. Fisher declares that the main part of the shower will be over, and only faint signs of it will be seen next year. A special feature of the Leonids is what is known as a "fire-ball," but is in reality simply a large meteer, which frequently leaves a long and sometimes colored trail.
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