Perseids 2007
This weekend is a good time to see the Perseid meteor shower as the Earth slams into the tail of material left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Earth's atmosphere hits the small fragments at around 60 kilometres per second and the resulting friction causes the air to glow. These fragments are called meteors but are more commonly, and incorrectly, known as "shooting stars". The best time to observe the shower is after midnight this Sunday night (i.e. very early on Monday morning) although you may see a few meteors on the nights either side of the 12th. This year we are particularly lucky because the Moon is new so won't be creating too much sky glow.
You don't need to know a lot about the sky to see the shower and Phil Plait has good advice on the 12 things you need to prepare. My advice is that you should make sure that you have warm clothes even if it is the middle of summer because it gets quite chilly in the middle of the night if you aren't really moving about. Also, get yourself a good deckchair/lawnchair to sit in to save your neck.
Below I've included an image, created with Stellarium, showing the Eastern sky at about 2am on Monday 13th August 2007. As well as watching for meteors, you can also spot the planet Mars. Mars is a few degrees above the star Aldebaran which is one of the eyes of Taurus (the Bull).
The Perseid meteor shower as seen from mid-northern latitudes at around 2am on 12th August 2007. CREDIT: Stuart/Stellarium
Comments: Perseids 2007
Great post. I love this shower each year as I'm often able to watch it from really dark skies in France where its still really warm. Enjoy.
Posted by Rob on Friday 10th Aug 2007 (07:47 UTC)
I have to do a report on astronomy and I can't find any info on it!
What tools do astronomers use? and is astronomy the study of ___???
please help!!!
Posted by bela on Friday 10th Aug 2007 (16:33 UTC)
Bela, you certainly seem to have been able to find my site so I'm sure you can find out something about astronomy ;-)
A good place to start for background would be the Wikipedia entry on astronomy (third result on Google for "astronomy").
Astronomers use telescopes of many different kinds to observe the Universe. Try searching for "telescope" with a search engine to find out more about those.
Posted by Stuart on Friday 10th Aug 2007 (16:44 UTC)
thanks so much for your post and it's so beautiful
Posted by replica gucci handbag on Monday 13th Aug 2007 (08:56 UTC)
Hi I watched last nights Meteoroids -Perseids from my garden. It was rather chilly I saw about 60 until I gave up at 3:15am perhaps I should have continued until dawn- but I was tired! I did see a few spectacular ones and once a set of three within seconds of each other all around the Auriga, Cassiopeia and Pegasus area of the North Eastern sky.I have never before sat watching the sky at night and was facinated by the clear view that I had before me. I could see Mars clearly too and of course The Plough. We had printed up a sky chart from the BBC website. I have seen these Meteoroids before whilst driving from London to Boston( as the passenger!) in 2003 an amazing sight. I was disappointed not to see the Showers or many per minute as predicted.
Posted by Alice Latty on Monday 13th Aug 2007 (10:07 UTC)
It clouded over in Connecticut so I only watched until about 1:45. I saw about a dozen bright ones, including one which went across the sky from east to west. It looked like it "bounced" in a couple of spots.
What time is peak viewing for tonight? (August 13-14)
Posted by Claudia on Monday 13th Aug 2007 (17:59 UTC)
Claudia, we are now past the peak of the shower so the meteor rate should be reducing. Go out after dark and look towards the East/NE. Ideally, you would wait until Perseus has risen, but I caught some Perseids on Saturday night at around 9.30pm local time, so you may see some before midnight.
Posted by Stuart on Monday 13th Aug 2007 (19:42 UTC)
I sat out in the garden on Sunday night and saw about 20 between 11.30 pm and 12.15 am. This was good because as we are in Wales it's usually its cloudy!!
Posted by Pete on Wednesday 15th Aug 2007 (11:01 UTC)
I think I may have just seen the Perseid shower. Never having seen it before I need your comments or I may think I am mad! It appeared as a scattered flock of about 40/60 golden starlings going from north-east to west. However this was dusk around 8.30 pm 15th August. Have I been seeing things?
Posted by Gill on Wednesday 15th Aug 2007 (19:56 UTC)
Gill, how fast was the "flock of golden starlings" going? The direction was certainly consistent with the Perseids (the constellation of Perseus would be below the horizon at that time in the north-east) but the speed may not be. If you saw them for more than a few seconds (e.g. minutes), they may very well have been a flock of birds but if they crossed the sky in a couple of seconds (or less), they may have been meteors. Did they appear to leave a short-lived trail behind them as they moved?
Posted by Stuart on Wednesday 15th Aug 2007 (20:19 UTC)
The "golden starlings" passed in only a few seconds, maybe 5 or 6, and yes, there was a very faint after-trail.
Posted by Gill on Thursday 16th Aug 2007 (11:21 UTC)
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