The Perseids appear to radiate from spot below the W of Cassiopeia in the constellation Perseus, hence the shower’s name. This map shows the sky facing northeast around 12:30 a.m. local time August 13. Source: Stellarium
Posted on 08/07/2015 1:49:08 PM PDT by BenLurkin
This year’s shower is special in another way. According to Sky and Telescope magazine, meteor stream modeler Jeremie Vaubaillon predicts a bump in the number of Perseids around 1:39 p.m. (18:39 UT) as Earth encounters a debris trail shed by the Comet Swift-Tuttle back in 1862. The time favors observers in Asia where the sky will be dark. It should be interesting to see if the prediction holds.
How To Watch
Already the shower’s active. Go out any night through about the 15th and you’ll see at least at least a handful of Perseids an hour. At nightfall on the peak night of August 12-13, you may see only 20-30 meteors an hour because the radiant is still low in the sky. But these early hours give us the opportunity to catch an earthgrazer — a long, very slow-moving meteor that skims the atmosphere at a shallow angle, crossing half the sky or more before finally fading out.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Maybe one will hit me in the head so I don’t have to vote.
Smoke from the fires is so thick right now you can barely see a dark red moon.
Hey! A guy can dream......
Wait now, have we forgotten something?
One of my favorite memories was sitting with my dad in the backyard watching the Perseids. We actually heard one “sizzle” in the atmosphere. I was just a kid and thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. They were coming at a pretty good clip for a while.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen far more meteors without publicized meteor showers than with. Most of them appeared within less than a minute outside, and that, about a couple of times or so per week.
Thank you for posting this.
Looking forward to this.
Best Perseids show I have seen to date was out in the Atlantic in 2007.
I first saw the Perseids in August 1957 when I was going to a camp on the eastern shore of Maryland. We had a clear 360 degree view of the sky (no pollution) and it was awesome. Actually found Comet Mrkos 1957D about August 17th, only 12 days after it was announced in Sky & Telescope Magazine (which I had not seen yet).
Best meteor shower was the Leonids in November 2003. Went out to the country west of DC (past Gainesville, VA) and just pulled off the road and parked. The sky was clear and the air cold. I saw at least 150 meteors of all types including low altitude/viewed thru ground mist ones that looks like white ghosts out in the corn fields. The last ones were visible about 6:30 AM because of their size and clear sky.
Nature is awesome. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy.
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