2008 Perseid Meteor Shower

Mark your calendar: The 2008 Perseid meteor shower peaks on August 12th and it should be a good show.


"The time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday, August 12th," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "There should be plenty of meteors--perhaps one or two every minute."

Perseid Meteor Shower Viewing Tips:

1. Telescopes and binoculars don’t aid in viewing, as the meteors move too swiftly. Meteor showers are best observed with the naked eye.

2. Get away from city lights. While in dark locations, experts predict you'll see about two meteors every minute. In metropolitan areas, the visibility rate can be as low as 25 meteors an hour.

3. Get comfortable. Bring a lounge chair or blanket, and recline with your feet facing due south. Look straight up. The Perseids should appear to be coming over your left shoulder.

4. Grab a camera. NASA suggests using a Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera with a 'T' (time) or 'B' (bulb) setting for taking time exposures.

5. Make sure the camera is secured to a tripod or a very stable surface, and aim it towards the sky, about 45 degrees above the horizon.

6. The darker the observing site, the easier it will be to photograph the meteors. In a dark sky, exposures of 10 to 20 minutes long can be made, but should be kept much shorter if background light threatens to fog the film, according to Space.com.

7. Meteors occur when the Earth cuts through the dirty old paths of comets. The specks strike our planet's atmosphere and burn up, creating brilliant streaks of light.

Photos of Perseid Meteor Shower taken from previous years:





Don't miss this beautiful phenomenas of nature.. Happy watching!