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Wednesday, August 12, 2015

A phenomenal Perseid meteor shower peaks this week — here’s how to watch

Barring cloudy skies, this week’s Perseid meteor shower may be a classic, excellent show.

The shooting star spectacle peaks on the night of Wednesday into Thursday morning, with as many as 90 to 100 shooting stars an hour, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the Royal Astronomical Society in the U.K. In the eastern U.S., the most prolific cosmic bombardment will likely be around 4 a.m. Eastern time.

This year’s peak could be phenomenal because the Perseids won’t compete with moon light, since the waning crescent moon sets at 6:44 p.m. on Wednesday. This will create a nice dark, moon-free heaven for meteor observers.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

when my grandchildren were very young, i would wake them up to go outside and view these "showers". they were just beautiful and to this day these boys still appreciate the "heavens"...

Anonymous said...

Crazy tradition,but we would go outside with our father and a .22 rifle.He would say "shoot at that one" and point somewhere.We would shoot where he pointed,and every now and then a meteor would streak across the sky.I think we actually knew we didn't hit it,but we had a blast.That would have been in the late 50's.

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed watching for about an hour before a bat decided to join me, I saw at least 20 one of them being the single most spectacular one I had ever seen. Worth every minute.