Andy’s Astronomy: Meteor Shower Peaks Next Week

Cross your fingers for clear skies.

A good meteor shower to watch, the Perseids Meteor Shower should reach peak activity during the overnight hours of Wednesday, Aug. 12 to Thursday, Aug. 13. As in most cases, the meteor shower tends to peak during the early morning hours.

The Perseids generally produce 30 to 50 meteors per hour at peak activity, but sometimes the shower produces significantly more. It is also known to produce meteors with long, bright tails mixed with some fireballs.

A new moon takes place during peak activity and if skies are clear this could be a great meteor shower to watch. Those with an action camera should consider setting up the camera pointing at the sky to capture peak activity.

The meteor shower will be best viewed from a dark area, away from sources of light.

The next meteor shower will be the Southern Taurids that begin Sept. 20.

NASA is getting ready to send the Roman Space Telescope into space on a SpaceX rocket.

The telescope is scheduled for launch Aug. 30, joining the venerable Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope.

The Roman Space Telescope will be placed about a million miles from Earth, or about halfway to the Sun. This allows the solar panels to generate maximum power while the instruments are protected. The James Webb Space Telescope is in a similar location.

The technological advances of the Roman Space Telescope will allow it to observe and record more and do so faster.

Meteors can flash across the sky anytime, day or night, and they are spotted quite often. Particularly bright meteors are often referred to as fireballs.

On July 31, a fireball was reported by 22 people across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The fireball was first reported at 10:28 pm Eastern by a skywatcher in Bergenfield, NJ. It was seen as far north and west as Oneida, NY, as far east as Warwick, RI, and as far south as Horsham, PA. The fireball appeared to travel from the southwest to the northeast.

None of the skywatchers reported hearing noise associated with the fireball but 10 reported seeing it fragment into pieces. It was captured in two videos and two photos.

Anyone seeing a fireball is urged to report the sighting to https://amsmeteors.org

Going outside and looking at the night sky can be fun and educational for the entire family.

There are a number of free apps available to help identify stars and constellations, and some of the apps will show satellites.

Happy skywatching!