look up. Waaaaaay up.
The Perseids meteor shower is probably the best-known meteor shower (although it’s not the best one of the year) because it happens during summer vacation time for the northern hemisphere. Its peak is around August 12th each year, although the date varies by a day or so. The Perseids are dust left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, which loops around the sun every 133 years or so. The meteor shower is named after the constellation that the meteors seem to come from – the constellation Perseus.
The best way to see meteors is to get outside the lights of the city. Some of the meteors will be faint, and so you will miss them if the sky is too bright from nearby streetlights, houses, or other sources of illumination. A park or parking lot outside the city is a good place to head. This year, the light from the Moon will not interfere either because the moon will set in early evening, so this is probably one of the better years to see the Perseids.
Meteor showers are the ultimate in low-tech observing. Take a blanket or reclining lawn chair along, and set up with your feet pointed away from any nearby lights or light pollution. (For southern Manitobans, this generally means putting your back to Winnipeg’s lights.) You don’t need binoculars or a telescope – you want to be able to see as much sky at once as you can, since the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. A telescope would just narrow your view too much.
Turn off your phone – the light from a mobile device will ruin your eyes’ ability to see faint stars and meteors. Even a quick glance will make it hard to see for a few minutes, so resist the inclination to check the web. Spend the time with the stars instead.
As for when the look – it depends on what you want to see. If you go out before midnight, you will see only a few meteors, but the ones you do see will probably be big bright ones. If you want to see lots of meteors, you want to watch from about 2am to dawn on the morning of the 12th. In the run-up before dawn, your part of the earth is heading straight into the trail of dust, and you’ll see the most meteors.
This is why some people have been disappointed by meteors showers (in addition to the social media hype). Meteor showers have a slow fade-in period of a few weeks, then a peak that might only last a few hours, followed by a slow fade-out. On the night before or after the peak, meteor rates are often less than half of what the peak is, and the rate drops quickly as you get farther from the peak.
Spruce Woods Provincial Park and Riding Mountain are GREAT places to take thev show in!
