If you gaze into the summer night sky for just a moment, you’ll likely spot a few “shooting stars” streaking across the sky.
The best time to see the summer meteor showers is the second week of August every year. Perseid meteor shower It will peak around the nights of August 11 and 12, with 50 to 100 fast, bright meteors appearing per hour per observer. On clear days, many meteors can be seen shining in a series of shooting stars. 2024 will be a very good year for observing the Perseid meteor shower, as there will be no bright moonlight to get in the way.
The first precursor events of the Perseid meteor shower began appearing around July 25. Only a few per hour can be seen, but their numbers start to increase during the second week of August. The last late events of the Perseid meteor shower may be visible until around August 18.
Generally, Earth experiences more meteor activity later in the year, and the numbers are more likely to double. meteor During the pre-dawn hours, the Sun moves slower per hour than during the evening hours because before midnight, you are on the “back” side of the Earth due to its orbital motion through space.
So for a meteor particle to “catch” us, it would generally have to have an orbital velocity faster than the Earth’s, but once we are turned to the “leading” side of the Earth after midnight, any particles aligned with the planet’s orbit will penetrate the Earth. Earth’s atmosphere Like a meteor. When such an object strikes the atmosphere at speeds of 7 to 45 miles per second (11 to 72 kilometers per second), its kinetic energy quickly dissipates in the form of heat, light, and ionization, creating a short-lived streak of light commonly known as a “shooting star.”
Want more advice on how to photograph the summer meteor showers? How to Photograph Meteors and Meteor Showers If you need a guide and imaging equipment, The best cameras for astrophotography and The best lenses for astrophotography.
Meteor overpopulation
However, alongside the Perseids, there are a number of other smaller meteor showers that are active at different times in July and August. While the hourly occurrences of these other showers are only a fraction of the total number of meteors produced by the Perseids, they produce a wide variety of meteors with different colours, speeds and trajectories. Summer meteors occasionally streak across the field of view, and are especially noticeable from late July through the third week of August.
Between July 26 and August 21, 6 different minor displays It is an active star cluster, including the Capricornids, Delta Aquarids, Piscis Austrinus, Alpha Capricornids, Iota Aquarids, and Kappa Cygni.
The radiant points of five of these meteor showers will reach their highest point in the southern half of the sky between 1:00 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. local time. The radiant point is the point in the sky where a meteor shower’s orbit would intersect near a star if you extended it backwards. sign This is where the name of this meteor shower comes from, and many people mistakenly believe that this is the best place to observe meteors, but in reality, the most meteors can be seen in the upper and southern skies.
In addition to meteor showers, there are always sporadic meteor showers that are seemingly unrelated to one another, averaging about seven meteors per hour. Because meteor showers begin and end gradually and indeterminately, the number of days they last is somewhat arbitrary.
All you need is your eyes and a little patience.
As one longtime meteor enthusiast once said, “Meteor watching is relaxing, fun, dramatic and just plain fun!”
Minor Shower List
This first meteor shower is the Capricornids, which will peak on July 26 but last from July 10 to August 15. The radiant point reaches its highest point in the south at about 1:45 a.m. At most, only a few Capricornids will appear per hour, but this year they will be blocked by a bright half moon in the east-southeastern sky.
There are two more days until the Southern Pisces meteor shower reaches its peak on July 28 (July 15 – August 30). The radiant crosses the meridian at 3:30 a.m. This is a minor meteor shower, with only about eight meteors per hour visible to observers primarily in the Southern Hemisphere, where the radiant is higher in the sky. However, the light of the nearby waning moon obscures visibility.
July 28 also sees the peak of the Delta Aquarids meteor shower (July 12 – August 23). This meteor shower has two radiants, indicating that there are two different streams of celestial debris that produce faint, medium-speed meteors that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. This meteor shower produces as many as two to three dozen meteors per hour, with the radiant peaking in the south around 3 a.m. However, the same waning moon that interferes with the southern Pisces meteor shower may also reduce the number of Delta Aquarids visible.
Another weak meteor shower is the Alpha Capricornids, which begins around July 3, peaks on July 31, and ends on August 15. The radiant point is highest in the south at around 1 a.m. Although fewer in number, the Alpha Capricornids are very spectacular, producing slow-moving, bright, and often yellow meteors with long tails that are sometimes fireball-sized. The good news is that the Moon will shrink to a thin crescent, providing little to no guidance in searching for these meteors.
The last small meteor shower before the Perseids is the Iota Aquarids, a two-radiant meteor shower that is visible from July 15 to August 25. The peak of activity is on August 6, when only about six meteors per hour can be seen if conditions are good. The radiant reaches its highest point in the south at 2:45 a.m.
After the Perseids, the last meteor shower of the summer is the Cygnids. This meteor shower appears from August 3 to 28, with a peak on August 17. Although the maximum appearance rate is only 3 meteors per hour, this meteor shower is classified as “slow-moving, occasionally bright enough to produce fireballs,” and if you watch carefully, you will get great results during that time. The best time to see this meteor shower is a few hours before midnight. The radiant point is just north of the Cygnids, and it passes almost overhead at 10:30 at night. Unfortunately, the nearly full moon will light up the sky almost all night long.
Summer meteor month
Here are radiant point charts by Yoshihiko Shigeno of the Japanese Meteor Society (NMS), created to help visualize the distribution of meteor radiants. Each map is divided into 10-day intervals in late July, early August, and mid-August, and the locations of detected meteor radiants are marked with a small “x” each.
Notice that the Capricorn, Aquarius, and Perseid areas are the most active in late July. By mid-August, the meteor radiants become more widely scattered throughout Aquarius, with the Perseid radiant dominating.
SPACE.com will be releasing a comprehensive viewing guide for the Perseid meteor shower, which will be appearing in the night sky on August 9. Stay tuned!
