Perseid meteor shower

August 12, 2003 7:13 AM

Perseid shower will peak in the (very) small hours of tomorrow morning...
We're in for a treat this year because Mars, at the closest it has been to Earth in almost 60,000 years, is also in sight. But the moon might cause smaller, fainter Perseid objects to be all but invisibile. If you're in Europe or North America, or elsewhere in the north hemisphere, you should be able to see something...
posted by tomcosgrave (11 comments total)

The BBC's mini-star chart is so devoid of context that I couldn't really tell where to look. A better option is Sky and Telescope's skychart, which is a truly excellent tool.
posted by norm at 7:22 AM on August 12, 2003

How's it devoid of context? It tells you what direction to look at and gives a diagram of Perseus. That's enough for most folks, I would have thought. S&T are obviously going to provide a better amount of data, but I wanted to give a more general link.
posted by tomcosgrave at 8:09 AM on August 12, 2003

It's so devoid of content that my browser returns a 404 error.
posted by ewagoner at 8:14 AM on August 12, 2003

Now if only we can get some clear skies ...
posted by Songdog at 8:22 AM on August 12, 2003

Great! Thanks for the heads up, tomcosgrave. We're BST -7, so the peak for us will be at about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Well sunset is at about 8 or so here - so should be good!
posted by carter at 9:00 AM on August 12, 2003

Now if only we can get some clear skies ...

Amen to that. Between the smog and the light pollution, I'm lucky if I can even see the moon anymore.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:05 AM on August 12, 2003

How's it devoid of context?

Nothing against your link, good sir! I was referring to the pop-up skymap portion, and pointing out that I didn't remember off the top of my head where Perseus or Camelopardalis or hell, Capella was.
posted by norm at 10:14 AM on August 12, 2003

No probs Norm :-)

Sadly, it looks as though that after a week of clear weather here in Dublin, it's gonna be cloudy tonight. I suppose it may clear by 1am or so, but I reckon there'll be no Perseids for me tonight :-( Still, I did see a very bright one on Friday around 1.30am, so I can remember seeing that and maybe it'll cheer me up!
posted by tomcosgrave at 10:39 AM on August 12, 2003

I am out looking right now, tomcosgrave, but all I can see at the moment is bright full moon and big ol' Mars! I'll keep trying tho and thanks for the heads up!
posted by Lynsey at 10:32 PM on August 12, 2003

The moon was always going to be a risk. Looking away from it towards Perseus is the best thing to do, and staying in the shade is best as well.

At least you saw more than me - all I saw was cloud :-(
posted by tomcosgrave at 3:25 AM on August 13, 2003

Grand total for this year: two Perseids. Lousy moon/light pollution.
posted by norm at 7:03 AM on August 14, 2003