Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Perseid Meteors Over Ontario

NASA ^ | August 13, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Perseus. That is why the meteor shower that peaked over the past few days is known as the Perseids -- the meteors all appear to come from a radiant toward Perseus. Three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of the Perseus. Therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears in Perseus. Pictured above, a composite of 13 early images from this year's Pereids meteor shower shows many bright meteors that streaked through the sky the night of August 11 near Oakland, Ontario, Canada.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit & Copyright: Darryl Van Gaal; Annotation: Judy Schmidt]

[SunkenCiv]

Gallery: Highlights of the 2013 Perseids Meteor Shower.

The Big One

...sand-sized debris expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of the Perseus.

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[Quick Shot]

And the one coming right at you looks like a bright star, until to late....

[JoeProBono]

[SunTzuWu]

Camped at Jim Jim Falls this weekend at Kakadu National Park in Australia. Persiads were beautiful. Not one bit of light pollution. The Milky Way seemed as bright as a street lamp.

[Bon of Babble]

Amazing! Sat outside for about an hour -- saw nothing!! But this is So Cal and there is a lot of light pollution and there was a light cloud cover last night too. DH says next year we're going to Joshua Tree to see the shooting stars... Maybe I'll even get to see something that looks like the image JoeProBono posted!! (don't drink, don't use drugs...).

[BenLurkin]

[married21]

We were at the Grand Canyon last week. There was one brilliantly clear night like that. My son and I sat up and watched for falling stars. My daughter, who has been looking at constellation patterns on the internet, was finally able to see in person so many of the constellations she knew about. And I had the best view of the Milky Way I had ever had.

But, it was just one night.

Now we are back in overcast and light-saturated So Cal.