The Perseid meteor shower is this weekend, and here's how you can watch it

Olivia Harvey
Updated

Cancel your weekend plans, Earthlings. One of the best meteor showers of the year, the Perseid meteor shower, is going to occur this weekend on August 12th. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to see upwards of 70 meteors per hour, so here’s how you can watch.

According to NASA, this year’s Perseid meteor shower will be especially impressive because it takes place during a new moon—the darker the skies, the more ideal canvas for meteors. What’s more, the peak of the Perseids (aka the best time to view the shower) is longer than most other meteor showers’ because it will take Earth three weeks or longer to travel through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet. The meteors we’ll see spray across the sky during the Perseid shower are actually flecks of dust and debris from the comet.

This year, the Perseids’ peak begins at 4 p.m. EST on Sunday, August 12th, and lasts until 4 a.m. EST on Monday, August 13th.

NASA notes that observers in the mid-northern latitudes (which includes those of us in North America, Europe, and most of Asia) will have the best views of the Perseids in the northern skies. The meteors are called Perseids because they look like they are radiating from the constellation Perseus, which appears in the northern sky soon after sunset.

? "Perseus and Caput Medus?", plate 6 in "Urania's Mirror or a view of the Heavens" by Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam ? ?????? ? "Tarjeta 6: Perseus y Caput Medusae" del Atlas "Urania's Mirror" (El Espejo de Urania) o "a view of the Heavens" (una visión de los Cielos) ? 2a. Edición de 1825 ? ?????? "Urania's Mirror; or, a 'view of the Heavens' is a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards, first published in November 1824. They had illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson's A Celestial Atlas, but the addition of holes punched in them allowed them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation's stars.They were engraved by Sidney Hall, and" "identified as the work of the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam, an assistant master at Rugby School (Warwickshire, England)". "The depictions of the constellations are redrawn from those in Alexander Jamieson's A Celestial Atlas, published about three years earlier." "Urania's Mirror illustrates 79 constellations, some of which are now obsolete, and various subconstellations, such as Caput Medus? (the head of Medusa, carried by Perseus)." "The cover of the box-set showed a depiction of Urania, the muse of astronomy, and came with a book entitled A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy... written by Jehoshaphat Aspin as an accompaniment." ?????? #AstronomicalStarChartCards #UraniasMirror #AViewoftheHeavens #RichardRouseBloxam #Astronomia #Astronomy #HistoriadelaAstronomia #HistoryofAstronomy #Constelaciones #Constellations #ConstelaciondePerseo #ConstellationofPerseus #PerseusConstellation #Perseus #Perseo #?

A post shared by Contemplar los Cielos (@contemplar_los_cielos) on Aug 11, 2016 at 7:34am PDT

Some Perseids will be so bright that even those of us located in cities will be able to see them. But to get the best bang for your buck, get yourself to a location that isn’t affected by light pollution. The darker, the better.

And if you can, wait until after midnight on the 12th to head outside and look up. You’re guaranteed to see more meteors in the early morning hours than you are during the evening.

NASA predicts that observers could see 60 to 70 meteors per hour during the Perseid shower’s peak.

But if you miss the Perseid peak, don’t worry. You may still get to catch a few stray meteors shooting through the night sky up until August 24th.

Keep an eye on the skies, space cadets. It’s going to be a remarkable show.

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