Leonids will light up the night sky Friday. Will Charlotte have a clear view?

Partly clear skies are expected Friday night for viewing the Leonid meteor shower, in which about 15 meteors per hour will zip across the night sky, according to AccuWeather.

The annual shower began Nov. 5 and will end Nov. 30, but the forecasting service says the best viewing will be between midnight Friday and dawn Saturday morning. No binoculars or telescopes are needed – just a clear view of the sky.

Visibility is expected to be fair to good across much of the lower South, including the Charlotte area, according to AccuWeather. The moon will be in its new phase, meaning its glare won’t obscure the streaking meteors.

The National Weather Service says skies over Charlotte will be partly cloudy Friday night, with a low temperature of 41.

The Leonids are associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which leaves a stream of particles through which Earth moves. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Leo.

This year’s shower won’t approach the meteor storm seen in 2002, when more than 3,000 meteors fell in an hour, National Geographic reports. A legendary 1833 storm rained down as many as 72,000 shooting stars an hour.

This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Leonids will light up the night sky Friday. Will Charlotte have a clear view?."