You’re in luck – it’s a particularly good year for viewing the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks this week and is widely considered to be the best annual shooting star show. Some meteors may be bright enough to cast shadows. “You’ll see a lot more this year”. During this time if you are located in a dark location with no light pollution you might see 50 to 100 meteors streak across the sky per hour. The showers tend to come in spurts, so there may be nothing for a period, followed by a sudden flurry of meteor activity.
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“In the actual downtown city, you might be lucky and get some of them, but you do need to go somewhere that’s a little bit less than looking straight up at the lights”.
Try to get away from sources of light – especially artificial – as this will impair your eyesight and may take you longer to become accustomed to the dark skies.
National Space Agency (Angkasa) research officer Mohd Redzuan Tahar said the Perseid meteor shower occurred from the tail debris of 109P/Swift-Tuttle comet which entered the earth’s atmosphere at a speed of approximately 212,500 km/h.
A few meteors may be seen over the next couple of nights.
Keep in mind you will likely see 1 to 10 meteors every 15 minutes.
The shower – which is a spectacular, eagerly anticipated event which serves you with some of the most stunning views of the night sky – is set for an even more special and unique year during 2015.
The Perseids are named after the constellation, Perseus, due to the direction in which the shower appears to stem from.
NASA recommends lying with your feet pointing toward the northeast, with a view of as much of the sky as possible. “You can’t track them with a telescope because they are too fast”.
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The Perseid Meteor Shower will be so bright at night, binoculars won’t be necessary to see it. You need to give yourself at least 10 min for your eyes to adjust to the darkness.
