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The Perseids are falling….

PERSEID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is entering a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Worldwide observers are now reporting more than 30 Perseids per hour, a number that could triple during the weekend when Earth reaches the heart of the debris zone. Forecasters recommend looking during the dark hours before dawn, especially Sunday morning, August 12th, when activity is expected to be highest. Visit http://spaceweather.com for sky maps, observing tips, and links to a live meteor radar.

August 10th, 2012 | Category: Journal

9 comments to The Perseids are falling….

  • AbigailM
    August 11, 2012 at 4:52 am

    Drat! a good Perseid shower, clear weather, dark time before dawn that’s after moonset, and I’m stuck in town with a still-healing ankle. Well, maybe the heavens, the weather, and the moon will cooperate for the Leonids.

  • smartcat
    August 11, 2012 at 5:25 am

    Heavy downpours and thunderstorms with nary a star in sight! :(

  • chondrite
    August 11, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    High overcast here. I’ve been working at the library days, then coming home at night trying to speed through the kitchen redo (helpful hint: when they say wait until the tile adhesive dries clear to lay the tile, be aware that you have NO wiggle room at that point, it’s do or die!) Consequently, I’ve barely noticed we have a night sky. Tonight I will be going up the mountain to visit friends; maybe we can break away and look for meteors sometime this evening, weather permitting.

  • pence
    August 11, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    Seems as if they coincide with cloudcover every year. Some years it is the only gray weather for August!
    They were the first time I ever saw shooting stars – I was in the country in England in 1966, a perfect place to see them as there was no light pollution. The shower was amazing.

    • chondrite
      August 11, 2012 at 2:14 pm

      O yes! We have had limited success with the Perseids, but the Leonids put on spectacular shows 3 times in the last decade. Something to do with the density of the debris stream, whether or not it coincides with a moon heading for or recently full, and of course the ever-lovin’ weather.

  • 82Eridani
    August 11, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    I took a sleeping bag out on the deck one August and watched for meteors until I fell asleep. Can’t recall if I spent the entire night….probably not as I’m a mosquito magnet. This year there’s cloud cover and perhaps rain forecast, and we desperately need the rain in Kansas.

    Another time, I caught a stray/unpredicted meteor shower, approximately 1980. It came from the southeast and was quite constant with large meteors for about an hour. I thought most meteor showers came from the northeast…at least the Perseids do.

  • Hawke
    August 11, 2012 at 7:45 pm

    I may try to watch for these if our weather cooperates…scattered T-storms here. We need the rain (and more so the cooling-off) but for this I would gladly tolerate another scorching day.

    I’ve never seen the Leonids. Have to look those up sometime :P I get to watch the Geminids quite frequently though. They occur really close to my birthday!

  • JohnDenton
    August 12, 2012 at 2:04 am

    Well,

    spent part of the last night with my wive on the balcony. Spotted around 15 or so, altogether. Still far to much light pollution to see more. Should have went into the forest.
    Great weather, though, here in Germany, absolutely cloudless.

  • CJ
    August 12, 2012 at 8:55 am

    We overslept! OTOH, meteor showers are far from precise, and there can be stragglers.

    One of the clear summer memory of my childhood is an old-fashioned county fair—tents, and cotton candy, and ball-tosses (you always lose those and the traveling carnies were good at making sure those bottles don’t move. Then Dad and I got stuck at the top of the pretty-good-sized Ferris wheel quite a while until they could get the motor running—then of course, they have to offload the bottom folk seat at a time; and then they had fireworks that went off prematurely—on the ground; I recall silhouettes against the explosions as the fireworks guys scrambled to clear the area—but nobody got hurt. And walking back to the car in the dirt-and-gravel parking lot (that kind of fairgrounds, out in the country) I remarked to Dad that I wished the fireworks had lasted longer…and gone up. And we looked up and saw a shooting star. Dad said there might be others, so we sat on the trunk of the old car and watched and sure enough there were others. I remember it as the night the heavens provided the fireworks show.

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