Perseid meteor shower - peaking Tuesday, August 12th.

1 comment

August 9, 11:35 AM

by Christopher Langton, S.F. Science Examiner

 

 

Images.astronet.ru

The Perseid meteor shower has actually been going on since mid July, when Earth first encountered the quite-spread-out cometary debris trail. However, the debris at the edges of the trail are quite sparse, and not producing many visible meteors.

During the next few nights, however, the earth will pass through the central core of the debris trail, where the material is much denser, so the opportunity for meteor sightings will be quite good.

The peak meteor rate (about 1 per minute) will occur Tuesday, August 12th, in the early AM, and it will be well worth it to drag yourself out of bed and get to a place with a good clear view of dark sky, away from city lights.

The early morning will be the best time to see the meteor shower for a couple of reasons. First, the moon will be setting at about 2AM, rendering darker viewing conditions. Second, the part of the Earth that is about to rotate into sunlight (dawn) is facing directly into the direction of Earth's travel in its orbit around the Sun, so we will be hitting the debris trail like a car driving high-speed through a locust swarm in Texas! For the same reason that you get a lot more bug splatters on your grill than on your trunk, you get a lot more meteors on the dawn side than on the twilight side of the Earth.

Meteors will streak across all portions of the sky. You will not need binnoculars or any other viewing aides. You should expect to see meteors at the rate of about 1 per minute, some fainter, some brighter. The radiant - the point from which they all seem to be originating - will be in the constellation Perseus, which will be high in the North-East sky (image from meteorshowersonline.com)

While looking in that general direction, note the Pleiades, the bright cluster of stars known as "The Seven Sisters," high in the Eastern sky. Below, note the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus straight to the East, about a third of the way up the sky, and Capella, a little to the North, in Auriga.  After 4AM, the constellation Orion rises in the East, carrying with it the star Betelgeuse directly East, and the star Rigel, a little to the South.

Directly West, look for the star Altair in Aguila, the Eagle, low in the sky, the star Vega in Lyra, a bit to the south, and Deneb, above Vega, in Cygnus.

Other Resources:
space.com
NASA
Sky & Telescope

   Subscribe   Feed

Include other special offers from Examiner.com
Terms of Use