Meteor Shower Tonight to Yield 80 Meteors an Hour?
Ann Minard
for National Geographic News
Updated August 11, 2009
The Perseid meteor shower will have to fight it out with a bright moon for visibility this year, but astronomers are still predicting a dazzling show tonight.
From any vantage point in the world, you might see more than 80 meteors an hour streak across the sky during the best viewing time, when the moon's glare will be weakest—late tonight and into the wee hours of tomorrow, local cloud and lighting conditions permitting.
The highest concentration of Perseid meteors hitting Earth's atmosphere will occur tomorrow afternoon, when they'll be largely invisible.
The Perseid sky show is "always the best annual meteor shower," said Bill Cooke, the lead for NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Alabama.
"Visually, the best are the Geminids. But December nights are cold, and people don't want to freeze their rears off."
Perseid Meteor Shower Viewing Tips
The moon will provide some interference for the Perseids, at just over half full and rising around midnight. The best advice: Look away from the moon—and all other lights—so your eyes stay as dark-adapted as possible.
To see the Perseid meteor shower, bring a blanket to a place away from city lights and lay on your back, taking in as much of the sky as possible.
The Perseid meteors will appear to originate in the northeastern sky, near the constellation Perseus, and to shoot off in all directions, said Brian Skiff, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff (see animated star chart below).
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