A guide to the shooting stars of summer
Friday, August 11, 2006
By Pete Zapadka, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Every August, countless people who normally take little notice of the night sky, set out for the darkness of rural hills and fields.
They come armed primarily with the basics for the hunt: a sleeping bag, pillow, blankets, mosquito repellent, and perhaps a beverage and something to eat.
The annual pilgrimage reaches its crescendo tonight and tomorrow night, when the Perseid meteor shower is expected to be at its best.
Bright moonlight, however, this year will obscure all but the brightest of the shooting stars. But Alan McRobert, senior editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, advises people to go out, "lie back, and gaze up at the night sky. Binoculars and telescopes are not necessary to see the show.
"Relax, be patient, keep the moon out of sight, and let your eyes adapt to the dark," he said. "With a little luck, you'll see a shooting star every few minutes on average."
The Perseid meteor shower is so named because the shooting stars appear to come from the constellation Perseus, which rises late at night in the northeast at this time of year. But skywatchers should be aware the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, so the best direction to look is where the sky is darkest.
Perseid meteors are tiny, perhaps the size of a grain of sand, that are debris that lies in the orbit of Comet Swift-Tuttle. They hit the Earth's atmosphere at more than 35 miles per second, and create a brilliant streak of light in the sky.
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1 comment:
Thanks Jay....will try to watch with the family!!!
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