And before the month is out, Venus will reappear in the early morning sky and show you where Mars has been hiding.
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It was hard to fix your eyes on just one spot in the sky.
If you have a very clear, uncluttered western horizon, be out with your binoculars looking west about a half-hour after local sunset for the two-day-old slender crescent moon.
“If you see one meteor shower this year, make it August’s Perseids or December’s Geminids”, NASA advised amateur astronomers. We all made so much noise, the white folks came out to see what was happenin’. Point yourself toward the northeast as a good start, though meteors should be visible across the night sky. I took a break and looked on Facebook to see what the rest of the world was doing and ran across a post by my friend, Karen Stigall, that mentioned she had been outside watching a meteor shower.
Leitrim was also treated to the show. The “W” shape of Cassiopeia is to Perseus’s upper left, Auriga and Taurus to the lower right with Orion and Gemini below them. Comets are the solar system’s worst litterbugs.
The term meteor refers to the flash of light we see from Earth when interplanetary debris enters our atmosphere.
Occurring yearly between July 17 and August 24, the meteors reach their peak with over 100 meteors an hour being produced.
The Roman theatre in the ruins of Acinipio, near Ronda, southern Spain “You can see the train hanging there glowing in the sky for a few seconds – sometimes for several minutes – after the meteor has gone”. Measure five fist-widths up from the horizon.
The stars prior to the Perseid meteor shower near Bardon Mill, England.
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The Perseids are the leftovers of a comet named Swift-Tuttle. Over time, its orbit has turned into a ring of dusty debris. Going to a rural area, away from urban spaces that are filled with light pollution, will increase the chances of seeing the Perseid meteor shower.
