How to See the Perseids Meteor Shower at Its Peak This Week
See the best of the Perseid meteor shower tonight or early tomorrow morning. The best and longest celestial spectacle of this summer falls on August 11-13, shining through the ether faster than at any other moment in the six-week rainstorm.
Although the Perseids have hovered steadily above our heads for nearly a month, now is the perfect time to go outside and admire the starry skies.
What are the Perseids?
As Lifehacker pointed out in early summer, the Perseids are the annual spectacle of the season, a six-week procession of burning rocks that follows Comet 109P / Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun once every 133 years. We were lucky enough to catch the wreckage of Swift-Tuttle, as it is a monster with a radius of 16 miles. Given its size, the meteoroids rip away from the larger rock and create the Perseids, which keep stargazers pinned to the skies for most of the summer.
The shower is named after its shining constellation, Perseus, named after the Greek demigod who was famous for killing the monster Medusa and thus gaining a home among the stars after his death. During a typical evening, rainstorms infiltrate about 60 stones per hour. This figure increases during peak showers, when around 100 per hour becomes visible.
How to see the Perseids
As with all meteor showers, it is important to make sure you are in an area free from light pollution. You need a darkened sky and, if possible, a beautiful secluded place to watch the show. This will be easier if you are in an area without a lot of buildings, as skyscrapers and streetlights will ruin your chances of seeing the Perseids at their maximum brightness.
It’s important to note that you’ll want to go outside from midnight to dawn, as EarthSky notes . The space and science publication highlights some of the best techniques for capturing the Perseids:
[Between midnight and dawn] when the part of the Earth you are standing on rushes into a meteor shower in space. This will show you more meteors. It will rain from above by dawn. Keep in mind that Perseid meteors will start flying from mid to late evening from northern latitudes. South of the equator, the Perseids begin to shine across the sky around midnight.
This is not something to be expected in a matter of minutes. A meteor shower deserves your time and patience, so expect to spend at least an hour under the stars for a chance to see something shiny.