When the Earth is closer to the debris than usual, like this year, a meteor shower appears.
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For those who venture out Saturday night, the best time to see the meteor shower is after about 10 p.m. and before 5 a.m.
Some sites, including spaceweather.com, say the show could be visible between Friday night and dawn Saturday.
The Perseid meteor shower put up on a attractive show overnight when it peaked with as many as 200 meteors per hour flying through the night sky. In prime conditions, up to 200 shooting stars an hour could be spotted without binoculars or a telescope.
Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years. The last Perseid outburst occurred in 2009. When Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle’s debris, specks of comet-stuff hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. You will be able to see meteors anywhere in the sky, but they will seem to originate from the constellation Persus in the northeastern sky. Most years, Earth grazes the edge of the debris stream, but this year, Jupiter’s gravity dragged the stream closer to us, meaning the Earth passed through closer to the center. Experts at NASA and elsewhere agree that three or more streams are on a collision course with Earth.
Go outside between midnight and dawn on the morning of August 12 to catch the Perseid meteor shower. Allow about 45 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark.
Camera settings: Make sure to set your focus on manual so that you can focus on the brightest star or planet in the sky. As the meteors fly enter our atmosphere they can reach temperatures as high as 10,000 degrees..
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Despite the their blistering speeds and heat, the Perseids pose no danger to Earth, NASA said. Most burn up 50 miles above our planet.
