THE PEAK OF THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER 12TH AUGUST!

METEOR ALERT!! ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS METEOR SHOWERS OF THE YEAR PEAKS THIS MONTH!!! EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER!!! 💖🌒🌠☄️✨    

A QUICK SUMMARY OF THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER

- Parent Body: Comet 109P / Swift-Tuttle
 
- Radiant Constellation: Perseus
 
- Shower activity between: 17th July – 24th August
 
- Peak activity: 12th – 13th August
 
- Peak meteor count: around 100 meteors per hour in perfect conditions
 
After a fairly long meteor drought, we now have not one, not two, but THREE prominent annual meteor showers that are now active and will hopefully put on a dazzling display and light up our ever darkening skies (hurray for darkening skies). Their names are; The Delta Aquariids, Alpha Capricornids and of course one of the biggest, most famous meteor showers of the year – the Perseid meteor shower.

All of these meteor showers are active now and the peak (the night with the most activity) for the Perseids meteor shower will occur on the night of the 12th August!

In this post we thought we would provide some information on the Perseids meteor shower, when and where to look and hopefully help you to spot the most meteors AKA shootting stars possible.

The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most prolific of the annual meteor showers, producing up to 100 meteors (some sources say 150) per hour under perfect conditions. The Perseid meteor shower always put on a great show is known to some as the fireball champion due to the record amount of bright meteors the shower can produce.

This year will be also be a fairly good year for viewing the shower due to the favourable moonset time. Even though the Moon will be 52% illuminated on the night of the 12th, it will set at around 22:35 leaving the skies free from natural light pollution and allowing us to view all the fainter Perseid meteors.

All in all, it’s a great time to spot meteors and well worth spending an hour or two out stargazing on these beautiful and much warmer summer nights.

If you would like more detailed information on the Perseid meteor shower, including tips on when and where to look please read on…

THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER

The Perseid Meteor Shower is so named because the radiant point from which its meteors appear to radiate from is located within the constellation of the great hero of Legend - Perseus.

The Perseids meteor shower occurs every July to August when the planet Earth passes through a cloud of debris left behind by comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. This year the shower is active between the 17th of July to the 24th August and peaks on the evening of the 12th of August.

The famous Perseid meteor shower is one of the annual highlights of many meteor shower calendars due to its high hourly rate, up to 60/100/some sources even suggest 150 per hour in perfect clear and dark conditions! The Perseid shower is well known for it’s bright, fast meteors which leave long lasting trails and often puts on a spectacular display (if conditions are right). The Perseids are very fast meteors which typically travel at a velocity of 36 miles per second as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, in mph that’s a speed of roughly 133,200 miles per hour!

THE FIREBALL CHAMPION METEOR SHOWER

For viewers in the Northern Hemisphere, this shower is among the best meteor showers of the year — in fact NASA has called it the "fireball champion" of annual meteor showers for its record-breaking number of extra-bright meteors, called fireballs. A meteor is called a fireball when it reaches a magnitude (brightness) equal to or brighter than that of the planet Venus. Venus is about -4 in magnitude, a meteor must be brighter than this to be known as a fireball. These fireballs are so bright that they can easily be seen in heavily light-polluted areas such as cities.

On rare occasions, it is possible to view meteors that explode and separate into several pieces in the sky. We have been treated to sights of a couple of these at the public stargazing events that we run in Dalby Forest. These explosive meteors are known as “bolides” and can outshine the bright full moon. They are an incredible sight to witness.

WHERE DO METEORS COME FROM? / PARENT BODY – COMET 109P / SWIFT-TUTTLE

Most meteor showers are caused by comet debris that crosses Earth’s orbit, some showers are caused by asteroid debris.

The spectacular Perseid meteor shower, lights up Earth's sky every summer as Earth passes through the trail left by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, a miles-wide behemoth that swings by Earth every 133 years.

Swift-Tuttle, whose nucleus is 16 miles (26 kilometers) wide, is the largest solar system object to pass close to Earth repeatedly. Researchers once thought it was likely to hit Earth in 2126 — but the last time it passed Earth, in 1992, astronomers took more precise measurements and calculated that future passes will not be dangerous after all.

Like all comets, Swift-Tuttle is a ball of dust, ice, rock and dark organic material. It was discovered in July 1862 independently by both Lewis Swift and Horace Parnell Tuttle.

The comet orbits the Sun, but follows a very steep incline as compared to the solar system planets — diving down into the solar system to whip around the Sun and back out again. So when the comet passes Earth it is traveling at great speed. Even though the comet only passes by Earth every 133 years, the meteor shower occurs every year when Earth moves through the trail of its orbit.

WHAT CAUSES THE LIGHT FROM METEORS?

As a comet or asteroid travels through space, it leaves a trail of dust and debris behind it. When Earth intersects these trails, we slam into the dust and debris in their wake. The debris then enters the Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly high speed, generating immense amounts of energy that is released in the form of intense heat and light. Meteors tend to vary from the size of a sand grain to about as big as a pea. The bigger the piece of debris, the bigger and brighter the meteor. 

When a meteoroid particle strikes the upper atmosphere at high speed, it heats up to around 1,650°C and starts to glow. The meteoroid also compresses and heats the air in front of it, exciting atoms like oxygen which in turn radiate light. Together, the two processes produce the bright, needle-like flashes known as meteors or "shooting stars."

Occasionally, a meteoroid may be large enough to survive it’s fiery journey through our atmosphere, landing somewhere on Earth. When a meteoroid manages to land on our planet, it becomes known as a meteorite.

METEOR COLOURS ❤️💙💜🧡💛☄️

When meteoroids burn up in our atmosphere, they can sometimes create beautifully colourful trails behind them. The colours that meteors display are partly caused by the presence of traces of elements such as sodium, iron and calcium, the same elements that are used to make fireworks colourful.

These elements become ionised as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere and emit a beautiful range of different coloured meteor trails as their particles burn up in the atmosphere. The colours that are emitted depend on the elements being excited.

Here are the colours associated with different elements found in meteors: 👇
 
🟠 Orange-yellow — sodium;
 
🟡 Yellow — iron;
 
🔵 Blue-green — magnesium;
 
🟣 Violet — calcium;
 
🔴 Red — atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen.

The speed at which the meteor enters the Earth’s atmosphere can also affect the colour. The faster a meteor moves, the more intense it’s colour may appear.

WHAT TO CONSIDER TO MAKE SURE YOU CAN SEE METEORS

The main thing you need to consider when looking for meteors from a meteor shower is the date when the Earth travels it’s furthest into the trail of debris left by the parent comet or asteroid. Around this period of time there will be a higher number of meteoroids entering the Earth’s atmosphere, this is the peak of the meteor shower.

The next most important thing to consider is the time that the radiant for the meteor shower will be high in the sky. The higher the radiant is in your visible sky, the higher your chances of viewing meteors will be.

However, sometimes the radiant for a shower may not be at its highest point in the sky when the skies are dark. You must also take the brightness of the skies into account along with the radiant’s location in order to maximise your chances of viewing meteors.

There are also other factors such as the Earth weather, the conditions of your viewing location and the Moon’s position and phase that will affect how easy it is to view meteors and need to be considered.

WHEN IS THE PEAK / THE BEST NIGHT TO WATCH?

This year the Perseid meteor shower is active between the 17th July – 24th August, however the peak night where the meteor shower will be most active will be the evening of the 12th of August into the morning of the 13th.

Don’t worry if it’s cloudy on the peak night, it will still be possible to view meteors on either side of the peak during the showers active period.

WHERE TO LOOK / THE RADIANT

The radiant for the Perseid meteor shower can be located in the constellation of the great hero of Legend - Perseus.

Perseus can currently be found below the distinct “W”-like shape of the constellation Cassiopeia and also above the bright star of Capella, the open star cluster the Pleiades and also above the bright planets Jupiter and Mars at this point in time.

The exact location for the radiant can be found next to the star Miram in Perseus and just below the Heart and Soul Nebulae.

You can tell if a meteor belongs to a specific shower by tracing a line backwards from the direction it appeared to travel in across the sky. If this line leads you to the radiant’s location, you can tell that meteor belonged to that specific meteor shower.

You don’t need to know exactly where the meteors radiate from because meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. However, knowing where the radiant is may help you increase your chances of viewing meteors. It can be helpful to know when the radiant rises and when it will be highest in the sky. When the radiant is higher, the amount of visible meteors will be increased. Another tip to help you see more meteors is if you can locate the radiant, try looking at a dark part of the sky around 45 degrees away from the radiant to maximise your chances of viewing meteors. Meteors seen closer to the radiant will appear shorter / leave shorter trails compared to others further away from the radiant.

WHAT TIME TO LOOK / RADIANT CONTINUED

As with many meteor showers (the Moon aside) the best time to head out and watch meteor showers is usually on the peak night between midnight and dawn, when the radiant is (usually) high in the sky and the skies are darkest. Don’t worry if you can’t head out this late, there should still be plenty of meteors about earlier in the night.

Although more meteors may be visible when the radiant is higher in the sky, the main thing we need to know about a meteor shower radiant, is that it has risen above the horizon. Once the radiant has risen in the sky there will be a higher chance of seeing meteors, and the higher the radiant has risen, the more meteors will be visible. Usually, if you wait until gone midnight, the radiant will be higher in the sky, and you will have a much greater chance of seeing meteors.

For those of us in Northern latitudes; Perseus is a circumpolar constellation, meaning that it never truly sets or rises, as it circles the celestial North pole closely enough to always be in the sky.

On the night of the 12th August, the Perseid meteor shower radiant will be high in the North Eastern skies all night. The radiants of the Delta Aquariid and Alpha Capricornid meteor showers will also be ascending high in the South Eastern/South South Eastern sky for the duration of the night. So make sure to be looking around the whole sky to increase your chances of seeing more meteors.

If you can, we recommend heading out at around 23:00 and spending a few hours looking for meteors. If you head out at this time the skies will be fairly dark and the Moon will have descended below the horizon. If you stay out for longer, the radiants for all three active meteor showers will have risen higher in the sky and the skies will become darker allowing you to see many more meteors.

If you head out early in the night, you might also be treated to something called an “Earth grazer” meteor (long, slow, colourful meteors that skim across the edge of our atmosphere).

WHERE TO VIEW FROM / VIEWING LOCATION

The location that you do your stargazing from can make a big difference to the amount of stars and in this case shooting stars that are possible to see in the night sky. The darker your viewing location, the more your eyes will adapt to the darkness and the more of the fainter meteors from a shower will be visible.

Ideally you want to find a safe dark location, with clear views of the sky, and as far away from sources of light such as street lights as possible.

DARK ADAPTATION / NIGHT VISION

Try not to look at sources of light such as your mobile phone or the Moon for around 15 minutes or so, this will allow your eyes to adapt to the dark conditions of your location. After around 15-30 minutes of letting your eyes adapt to the dark, the pupils of your eyes will dilate to their maximum aperture and the receptors in your eyes that are responsible for low light vision will have fully activated. This will allow your eyes to gather more light and more fainter night sky objects will be easier to see.

If you need to use a torch to light your way, we recommend using a torch that emits only red light. Red light has much less of an effect on your night vision than white light.

If you want to use your phone, use it on its lowest brightness and you can always cover the screen with a red film to minimise its effect on your night vision. Star map/planetarium apps such as Stellarium often have a night mode that displays only in red light which can also help you keep your night vision.

Another tip to help you see more on nights with a bright moon is to keep the moon out of sight. If you have a large tree or building nearby to your location, try blocking the moon from your line of sight with the tree/building. This can help stop a bright moon from ruining your dark adapted night vision.

THE MOON / DARK SKIES

Sometimes the glow of the Moon can interfere with a meteor shower and spoil meteor shower views by lighting up the night sky and washing out the fainter meteors. When the Moon is bright it leaves only the brightest of meteors visible.

Fortunately for this year’s peak night of the Perseid meteor shower, although the waxing Moon will be 52% illuminated, it will set as the skies become dark at around 22:35pm. This means the Moon will not be in the skies for the rest of the night and won’t be causing any natural light pollution allowing us to view all the fainter meteors.

OTHER CELESTIAL TREATS TO LOOK OUT FOR

There are also quite a few other celestial treats to look out for during the night at this point in time. The following times given are for the peak night of the 12th of August.

The amazing ringed planet Saturn will be visible from dark towards the Southeast. Saturn can be found in the constellation of Aquarius the water bearer (nearby to the radiant for the Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower). Saturn and Aquarius will climb in the sky heading towards the South. Saturn will reach it’s highest point in the sky in the South at roughly around 02:53am. From here Saturn will begin to descend heading towards the Southwest  where it will disappear in the morning twilight.

If you look to the NorthEast just below Perseus at around midnight, you may be able to spot the beautiful bright planets Mars and Jupiter rising above the horizon in the constellation of Taurus the bull. Mars and Jupiter will rise higher in the sky heading towards the East and Southeast as the night progresses, and will disappear from view in the morning twilight.

The glowing open star cluster the Pleiades (aka the Seven Sisters) can be seen nearby around 15 degrees above and right of Mars and Jupiter.

Our closest galactical neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy can be found around 25 degrees above and right of Perseus.

The core of our home galaxy the Milky Way can be seen towards the Southwest, and the rest of the galaxy can be seen stretching across the whole of the night sky. The large asterism of the Summer Triangle can help you locate the Milky Way.

The great globular star cluster M13 can be seen in the constellation of Hercules the hero.

These are just a few of the amazing sights that can be seen in our night skies at the moment.

VIEWING TIPS

• You don’t need a telescope or any special equipment to view meteors, just your eyes and a bit of patience.

• If you do own binoculars or a telescope, you may want to take a closer look at some of the amazing celestial treats that are currently visible in our night skies. Saturn with its majestic ring system, the red planet Mars, Jupiter with its great weather bands and great red spot, the Pleiades with its faint nebulous glow, the amazing Andromeda galaxy and the sparkling Hercules cluster all are spectacular to view with binoculars or a telescope.

• Find a safe, dark location with clear unobstructed views and as far away from streetlights as possible. The darker your location, the more meteors you will see. Don’t worry too much if you can’t get somewhere dark, even if your viewing location isn’t very dark, you should still see the brighter meteors.
 
• Allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness and you will see more meteors. Our eyes require time to adjust to low levels of light. Try not to look at bright lights (such as a phone) for around 15-30 minutes and this will allow you to see many more meteors. If you do require to use a torch, use one which emits red light as this interferes with your night vision much less than white light.
 
• Be mindful of other stargazers when using a torch, you don’t want to ruin other people’s meteor shower experience!
 
• You don’t need to know where the radiant for a meteor shower is to be able to view meteors but if you do, it can help. Once you’ve located the radiant in the sky, looking halfway between the horizon and the zenith (directly upwards), and 45 degrees from the radiant will improve your chances of viewing meteors (however, pay attention to the whole sky as they can appear anywhere). The closer to the radiant you look, the shorter the meteors will appear. The further away from the radiant you look, the longer they will appear.
 
• You can tell if a meteor belongs to a specific shower by tracing a line backwards from the direction it appeared to travel in across the sky. If this line leads you to the radiant’s location, you can tell that meteor belonged to that specific meteor shower.

• You might want to take a blanket to lay on or a chair to recline in, so your neck doesn’t get strained whilst looking up.
 
• If you head out, wrap up well! Although currently our nights are fairly mild, it still can get quite chilly and you may end up being too cold to stay out and see any meteors. Bring a blanket to cover yourself in and a flask with a warm drink for extra comfort. ❄️🧤🧣
 
• You may wish to gather some of your friends and family to share this magical occasion too. You could always host a meteor watching party with music and drinks (but no bright lights!).

CLOSING WORDS FROM ASTRO DOG 

After a long meteor shower drought, we are super excited to have the chance to see some more great meteor showers and are looking forward to the famous Perseid meteor shower with great anticipation. We have already seen some amazing fireball meteors in the nights running up to the peak. We can’t wait to see if we witness more amazing fireballs during the rest of Perseid meteor shower and we hope you all get to see some too!

As ever, interactions or shares are a great help, and we are eternally grateful for all your support.

Good luck everyone and clear skies!!! 💖

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