Perseid meteors scream through our atmosphere at nearly 40 miles per second, so they often leave behind long, glowing, persistent trains. The shower gets its name from the point in the sky where the meteors appear to originate - the radiant. When the radiant is high in the sky you can capture the most meteors. As typical of most meteor showers, this occurs in the early morning hours - and this year that would be on Thursday, August 12 around 2 A.M when up to 100 meteors per hour can be seen (in dark suburban skies). Since this particular shower is so plentiful, it's possible to spot the meteors as early as 9 p.m.
Although that is the best time to view them, don't worry if you miss the peak as this shower typically builds up and winds down slowly, so you can head out on any of the few days before and after the 12th as well.
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| JASON WEINGART / BARCROFT MEDIA |
Observing the Show
In order to achieve the best views avoid artificial light as much as possible when viewing the shower. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to travel to a dark-sky site. Just try to keep nearby street and house lights out of your line of sight.
Pick a comfortable location where the view to the north-east is unobstructed. Lie back so that a large swath of the sky is visible and you are not straining to keep you head looking up. A lounge chair or recliner works well. Look for Perseid meteors at an altitude around 60˚ in any direction. If you want to see the most faint meteors be prepared to spend about 20-30 minutes to allow your eyes to get dark-adapted.
Where do the Perseids come from?
Meteors are fragments of periodic comets, the dust and debris that they leave behind in their orbits. In the case of the Perseids, that comet would be Swift-Tuttle, which orbits between the Sun and beyond the orbit of Pluto once every 133 years. Every year, the Earth passes near the path of the comet, and the debris left behind by Swift-Tuttle shows up as meteors in our sky as they burn up in our atmosphere.
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