August 13, 2010
Perseids Meteor Showers
This is the time of year for the most famous and most reliable of all meteor showers. The Perseids. They are visible from almost every part of the United States and tonight is the night of maximum ‘events’ to watch. Look to the North East sky.
When Portland Firefly was a child, every year during the ‘dark of the moon’ in the month of August, we would take our Family vacations camping in the great outdoors of the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains. We had a very special campground that we would retreat to and there were several wonderful cold water trout filled lakes nearby. I loved these vacations in the fresh high altitude outdoors surrounded by the beauty of God’s nature.
And it was usually when were sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows or on the dark nighttime drive through the desert that my little child’s eyes would look for all of the ‘shooting stars’ in the darkness of the milky-way night sky. I was never disappointed.
This meteor shower gets the name “Perseids” because it appears to radiate from the constellation Perseus. An observer in the Northern Hemisphere can start seeing Perseid meteors as early as July 23, when one meteor every hour or so could be visible. During the next three weeks, there is a slow build-up. It is possible to spot five Perseids per hour at the beginning of August and perhaps 15 per hour by August 10. The Perseids rapidly increase to a peak of 50-80 meteors per hour by the night of August 12/13 and then rapidly decline to about 10 per hour by August 15. The last night meteors are likely to be seen from this meteor shower is August 22, when an observer might see a Perseid every hour or so.
And so this childhood ritual continues with tonight being the night of greatest ‘shooting stars’.
Be sure to make a wish!!!!
