Title: Perseid Meteor Shower
Location: Hawaiian Island Viewing
Date / Time: August 11-13, 2018
Comments: The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks after midnight, in the pre-dawn sky, the mornings of Aug. 12th & 13th. The Perseid meteor shower is always good, but this year it is extra-good. The Moon will be New during the shower's peak, providing a dark backdrop for as many as 100 meteors per hour. The best time to look is during the dark hours before sunrise on Sunday, August 12th, and again on Monday, August 13th. At those times, the shower's radiant will be high in the sky, spewing meteors in all directions: Perseid meteors are typically fast & bright, & often leave persistent trains. They appear to "radiate" from the constellation Perseus, "The Hero." Activity increases during the early morning hours when Perseus is high in the northeast & the Earth spins sky-watchers into the oncoming stream of comet debris. Starting on the nights of August 11/12 and 12/13, watch for Perseid meteors to streak across the sky. Find a location with a good view of the full sky; away from distracting street lights or house lights. You do not need a telescope or binoculars to view this or any other meteor shower. Just get yourself to the darkest location you can find, relax in a comfortable recliner chair, perhaps with a blanket & hot beverage, & enjoy the show! Perseids typically produce lots of bright meteors, many leaving luminous trails visible for several seconds. These are FAST meteors, with a velocity of about 37 miles/sec or 133,000 miles/hour! Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the path of a comet. The bits of debris left behind by the comets, most no larger than a grain of sand, create a spectacular light show as they enter (& burn up in) Earth's atmosphere. The Perseids' parent comet is 109/Swift-Tuttle, which last visited our part of the Solar System in 1992. The comet has an orbital period (returns to orbit our Sun) approx. every 130 years.

Maintained by Roz Reiner - Kauai, Hawaii

 

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