I got this email from a friend of mine who is an astronomer.
It is being predicted that tonight the Earth may pass through a meteor stream laid down by Comet Tempel-Tuttle about a thousand years ago. This early peak of the Leonid meteors is set to occur at about 11:30pm when the radiant is low over the eastern horizon. Best estimates of meteor rates are between 50 and 100 per hour (these are zenithal hourly rates - i.e ideal conditions with the radiant overhead).
The 'usual' peak of the Leonids is still expected to occur at around 6:30am on November 19th.
Also, there was an awesome display of aurora last night - which I was told could be seen through breaks in the cloud at around 9pm. It's possible that it may appear again tonight. The Sun is heading towards the minimum of its 11 year sunspot cycle so these outbreaks of the Northern Lights are unusually rare.
You can find out more about these events here: http://spaceweather.com/
The shower last night turned out to be a dud, but more are expected later in the month with a higher prospect of actually happening because these trails have passed the earth recently.
Time and level of the maxima of the shower :
| Stream | Time of maximum | expected ZHR |
| 1333 | 2004 Nov 19h 06:42 UTC | 10 |
| 1733 | 2004 Nov 19th 21:49 UTC | ~ 65 |
| 1001 | 2004 Nov 8th 23:30 UTC | 50 (100?) |