The Perseid shower peaks tonight. The Perseid meteors are debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. The best viewing will be after midnight, especially just before dawn, coming out of Cassiopeia. (Really out of nearby Perseus, but I couldn't pick Perseus out of the night sky if my life depended on it. It's just north of Cassiopeia.) Cassiopeia is in the Milky Way, on the far end from Saggitarius (the Teapot), which in turn is right next to where the tail of Scorpio intersects the southern end of the Milky Way. Cassiopeia and Perseus are just above the horizon in the northeast right now (10 p.m. Central), but will be near the horizon just before dawn, a bit south of west.
The moon is near dark tonight, so it should be a good show. You can expect to see a flash about every 45 seconds near dawn.
Be sure and secure your triffids before you turn in for the night.
5 comments:
With any luck, we'll be watching alongside you -- if several hundred miles away.
Good hunting for us until about dawn. How was it where you were?
Overcast strikes again. I'm 0-4 on meteor showers this year.
LittleRed1
Overcast here, too, when the alarm went off at 3:30. Too bad, because it was looking pretty clear when we went to bed. I'm glad Grim at least had a good viewing!
That's one of the perks of living at altitude, *overcast* to you guys is under me. We've had several nights of fantastic meteor shows this year and are looking forward to many more.
It was the Perseids that first took my breath away one night after settling down on the side of a fire line for the night. At 8,000' in the middle of the Rocky Mt's there isn't any light pollution, and the night sky is a tree-framed picture of starlit glory with meteors zooming across every 15-30 seconds lasting so long that the tail is still faintly illuminated even as the head is quickly burning out.
Breathtaking and awe-inspiring are completely inadequate words to describe such a sight, but, sadly, they are the only ones that the English language has that even come close.
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