Sunday 5 August 2012

Perseids Meteor Shower

The Perseids meteor shower will be reaching at it's peak around the 11th, 12th and 13th of August this year, they will be visible from late evening to the early dawn but they will be best in late evening before the moon rises. A moon rise and set chart is available here you may need to change your location on the website to make the chart accurate. The Perseids meteor shower generally peaks at around 50 meteors per hour ( the number of meteors you see can be affected by a lot of things, how clear a night it is, how much light pollution there is e.t.c). When observing the meteor shower you will have the best observing experience if you try and find the least light polluted place in the area around you. Try to make sure that it is away from the street lights and other major light polluters, also try to make sure that it has an unobstructed view of the sky above, but if you can't find anywhere that doesn't have much light pollution that doesn't mean that you cant attempt to observe the meteor shower anyway. This shower also offers a great opportunity for long exposure imaging, the meteors in the shower are typically fast and bright. The meteors mainly radiate from the constellation Perseus, but if you don't know where that is in the sky it doesn't matter because the meteors will appear all over the sky. Good luck with observing the meteors and I hope you manage to see lots.

No comments:

Post a Comment