Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks tonight
http://www3.cosmiverse.com/newsimages/perseid_meteor_shower_diagram3big.gif
Perseid meteors are fast, bright and colorful. The annual Perseid shower is one of the year's best. Really spectacular. But that's not why I love watching them. The real reason is ... the Perseids are comfortable.
Remember the Leonid meteor storm last November? Great meteors. Lousy weather. Outdoors at 3 a.m. in mid-November is just too cold for comfort. The Perseids are different. They come in August when the cool night air is refreshing, not bone chilling. I can shuffle outside at 3 a.m. in my pajamas and still enjoy the show.
Rest of the article (http://www3.cosmiverse.com/news/space/0802/space08090201.html)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0208/fireworks_steele.jpg
Fireworks and Shooting Stars
Credit & Copyright: Jim Steele
Experimenting with a new telescope and camera, photographer Jim Steele captured this surreal but festive image of fireworks in the night sky above Ashland, Oregon. The date was July 4th and the fiery streaks were part of the traditional annual celebration of independence day in the United States. Fiery streaks from another annual event will revisit dark skies this weekend, as shooting stars arc through the night during the much anticipated Perseid Meteor Shower. Perseid meteors are actually bits of dust from the periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle and once each year planet Earth orbits through Swift-Tuttle's cometary dust stream. As the comet dust enters Earth's atmosphere traveling at tens of kilometers per second, the particles are vaporized leaving bright and sometimes colorful trails. While Perseid meteors can be viewed over the next few nights, this year's shower is expected to peak on August 12 and 13 with a rate of dozens or more meteors per hour visible in moonless early morning skies.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0208/perseid3_sk.jpg
A Perseid Meteor
Credit & Copyright: S. Kohle & B. Koch, Bonn University
The ongoing Perseid Meteor Shower should be at its strongest on August 12 and 13. The best time to watch will be between 2:00 AM and dawn on Monday morning (so plan on setting your alarm tonight!) and then again on Tuesday. In dark, moonless, predawn skies you may see dozens of meteors per hour. Grains of cosmic sand and gravel shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle will streak across the sky as they vaporize during entry into Earth's atmosphere. Tracing the meteor trails backwards, experienced skygazers will find they converge on the constellation Perseus, thus this annual meteor shower's name. Pictured above is a Perseid meteor from 1993. The colors are representative but digitally enhanced. As the meteor streaked across the night sky, different excited atoms emitted different colors of light. The origin of the green tinge visible at the right is currently unknown, however, and might result from oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.
I counted 21 Perseids and 5 'randoms' in a 1hr period from 22:30 to 23:30BST last night. :) Some really bright ones, but not as many as I'd hoped.
Then it clouded over :mad:
It was a wasted night for me. Between the clouds and lightning it was a washout...
At times, unable to control my pedantry gene: 'randoms' are called sporadics.
"Sporadics? Get out of town!"
Yes. Quite so. If you wish to see meteors, leave behind the light pollution.
:)
Actually 4 of the 5 sporadics appeared to be eminating from around Altair. Could they be residual Lyrids? Or is this not possible due to the date and Earth's spatial position?
Or possible one of the Cygnids?
Probably cygnids.....they peak around this time of the year too
(peak somewhere in July I guess, but I´m not sure)
I had a great perseid night, but a day later, on my holiday, not much light pollution, magnitude 6.x with naked eye.