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"View-tah's" Astronomy Pages | ||||||||||
| "Bringing the Joys of Astronomy to the Public Through Awareness, Advocacy, and Education." | |||||||||||
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| Intro Sun Planets Asteroids Comets Meteor Conjunctions Spaceweather Aurora | |||||||||||
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The Perseids |
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The Perseids are probably the most famous of all
meteor showers. Coming during the warm summer month of August,
viewers comfortably enjoy the display as the Earth passes through the path
of the comet Swift-Tuttle.
The radiant of the Perseid meteors is in the northern portion of the constellation Perseus (hence the shower's name), between Perseus and the constellation Cassiopeia. Visible from July 23rd to August 22nd, The best night for viewing will be Wednesday, August 11th and into the morning hours of Thursday August 12th, (coinciding with the coming of a new moon)! The actual peak is going to happen at about 10:00AM MDT (15h UT). Expect to see up to 80 meteors per hour in addition to the 10 or so shooting stars we see this time of year anyway! There's also the potential for an unusually active
shower. The comet responsible for the event is Comet Swift-Tuttle, whose dust particles enter our atmosphere
at 130,000 mph, thus causing the shower. It's irregular path through the void has caused swaths of extra dense
collections of particles and this year, we're set to go right through a trail left when it passed by during
the US Civil War in 1862! Here are a few links for additional information: | ||||||
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