How to See the Perseid Meteor Showers This Season
We’re getting closer to the best time of the year for meteor showers, so grab a blanket, some beer, and this handy guide to actually find them.
This is just the beginning of the meteor shower season, and according to NASA, the Perseid peak falls in mid-August. But the festivities begin in mid-July. The Perseids are popular because they mostly occur during our warmest season, which makes the prospect of sitting outside to see them extremely appealing. They often have long striped tails and can rain 50-100 per hour. The Perseids also have “fireballs” – brightly colored meteors with longer stripes, sometimes of “magnitude greater than -3”. This is great.
When you see it
NASA says it will rain on July 14 and continue until August 24. Their meteorite expert Bill Cook told Space.com that the best nights will be August 11-12 and August 12-13, leaning towards later times.
“This year the moon will be around new moon, it will be a crescent moon, which means it will set before the Perseid show starts after midnight,” Cook said. “The moon is very favorable for the Perseids this year and it will make the Perseids probably the best rain of 2018 for people who want to go out and look at it.”
Where can you see it
The best viewing will be for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, but some viewing should be available to people in mid-southern latitudes. The best time to see them is during the wee hours, so you can turn this into a hiking adventure or after party, but sometimes they start showing up as early as 10pm. Being outdoors or away from light pollution is obviously the best option for visibility; Also check the weather in case there is a cloudy night ahead. According to Cook, it takes half an hour for human eyes to adjust to darkness, so it may take a minute before you can see these shooting stars. Be patient when you leave.
Where did they come from
Meteor showers are not actually shooting stars; These are pieces of space debris attached to a comet’s tail, usually pieces of the comet itself or shattered asteroids. This summer, the Perseids are part of a comet called 109P / Swift-Tuttle, which was first discovered in 1862. Swift-Tuttle takes 133 years to orbit the sun, and was last in the inner solar system. 1992. The “radiant” Perseid, or the place from where they appear in the sky, is the constellation Perseus: hence the same thing. However, the real source of the meteor shower is this huge comet, which dumps its beautiful space debris for our pleasure.