Great Leonid Meteor Shower's Brightness Erased by Full Moon [VIDEO]

The expected annual Leonid meteor shower turned into a damp squib for all the skywatchers who turned their telescopes towards the sky and stayed up till early hours in the hope of catching a glimpse of the mega meteor shower.

The Leonid meteor shower that was scheduled to peak this weekend late night and early hours of Nov. 17 at 10.00 UT/5.00 a.m. EST, turned into a major disappointment for the Earthlings, as the meteor  failed to put up a brilliant show mainly due to the full moon that flooded the night sky with its brightness, which  interfered with the celestial firework. This especially turned out to be a major frustration to the residents of North America who were expecting to receive the best view.

During the peak, nearly 10-15 meteors were expected per hour. Six hours later the second peak of meteor showers was expected to hit the Earth, favoring the skywatchers located in the Central Pacific region.

"Unfortunately the full moon in the sky will likely wash out all but the very brightest Leonids," NASA officials explained in a skywatching guide. "Meteor rates, normally 10-20 per hour, are predicted to be less than 10 per hour. The shower should be visible from any populated area on the planet with clear dark skies, though Northern Hemisphere observers are favored due to the radiant's location in the constellation Leo."

The prolific meteor shower-Leonids are bits of debris from the Comet Tempel-Tuttle that visits the inner solar system every 33 years and during this event it leaves a stream of dusty debris. Whenever the Earth collides with one of the debris, a meteor flies out of the constellation Leo.

"We can predict when Earth will cross a debris stream with pretty good accuracy," says NASA astronomer Bill Cooke. "The intensity of the display is less certain, though, because we don't know how much debris is in each stream." Caveat observer!

The Leonids are famous for their spectacular meteor shower and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center assisted the skywatchers by offering a live upstream of the skies over Huntsville, Ala.