Anyone who gazes into the summer night sky for even a short time will likely spot a few “shooting stars” darting across the sky.
The summer’s best meteor show comes during the second week of August during the annual Perseid meteor shower, which, at its peak around the nights of August 11 and 12, is capable of producing 50 to 100 fast and bright per hour for a single observer. Many bright meteors with trains are seen under good skies. 2024 will be a very good year to see the Perseids because the bright moonlight will not interfere.
The first precursors of the Perseid shower began to appear around July 25. At best you will only see a few per hour, but the numbers will start to increase during the second week of August. The final slides of the Perseid can still be observed until August 18.
In general, Earth experiences richer meteoric activity during the second half of the year. And you’re more likely to see twice as many meteors per hour in the predawn hours compared to the evening hours. This is due to the fact that during the hours before midnight we are on the “creeping” side of the Earth, due to our orbital motion through space.
So any meteorite particle generally needs to have an orbital velocity greater than Earth’s to “catch” us. However, after midnight when we return to the “leading” side of Earth, any particles that lie along the planet’s orbital path will enter Earth’s atmosphere as a meteor. As such objects slam into our atmosphere at speeds of 7 to 45 miles (11 to 72 km) per second, their kinetic energy is rapidly dissipated in the form of heat, light, and ionization, creating short-lived streaks of light referred to as widely. like “shooting star”.
If you want more tips on how to photograph summer meteor showers, check out our guide to photographing meteors and meteor showers, and if you need imaging equipment, consider our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.
Meteor showers
To go along with the Perseids, however, there are many other small meteor shows that are active at various times during July and August. While the hourly rates from these other meteor streams are only a fraction of the numbers produced by the Perseids, combined, they provide a wide variety of meteors of different colors, speeds, and trajectories. The summer meteors, which occasionally fly across your line of sight, are especially visible between the end of July and the third week of August.
And between July 26 and August 21, there are no less than six different small screens that are active. Among them are Capricorn, Delta Aquarius, Australid Piscis, Alpha Capricorn, Iota Aquarius and Kappa Cygnids.
The radiant points for five of these showers peak about halfway up the southern sky between 1 and 3:30 a.m. local time. A radiant is the place in the sky where the paths of the members of the shower, if stretched back, will cross near the star or constellation for which the shower is named. Many people are fooled into thinking that this is the best place to look for these meteors, but in fact the greatest number will be seen in the region of the sky high up and towards the south.
In addition to meteor showers, there are always sporadic, seemingly unrelated ones that occur at an average rate of about seven per hour. The duration per day of a shower is somewhat arbitrary, since the beginning and end are gradual and indefinite.
The only equipment you need is your eyes and a modest amount of patience.
As a long-time meteor enthusiast once noted: “Meteor watching is relaxing and enjoyable, potentially dramatic and just plain fun!”
Small shower list
This first of our rain is Capricorn, which culminates on July 26th, though it lasts from July 10th to August 15th. Radiation reaches its highest point in the south around 1:45 am. At most, only a few bright Capricorns will appear. per hour, but this year these meteors will be blocked by a bright giant moon shining brightly in the east-southeast sky.
It will be just two days until the Piscis Australids reach their maximum on July 28 (July 15 – August 30). Radiation crosses the meridian at 3:30 am. This is a smaller stream; only about eight members per hour will be visible to observers mostly in the southern hemisphere, where the beam rises high in the sky. But light from a near-last-quarter moon will hinder visibility.
Also, on July 28 comes the peak of the Delta Aquarids, (July 12 – August 23). This shower has two emitters, indicating that we are seeing two distinct streams of celestial debris that produce faint, medium-velocity meteors that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. About two or three dozen meteors an hour are produced by this shower, and the irradiators reach their highest peak in the south at about 3 a.m., but the same last quarter moon, which will interfere with the Piscis Australids, is also likely to reduce the number of Delta Aquarids. that can be seen.
Another weak shower is Alpha Capricorn, which begins around July 3rd, peaks on July 31st, and ends on August 15th. Radiation is highest in the south around 1 a.m. Although few in number, Alpha Capricornus often produces slow, bright — sometimes, fireball-class — long yellow meteors that can be quite spectacular. Good news: The moon has now shrunk to a thin crescent and will provide little, if any, conclusion to the search for these meteors.
The last small shower before the Perseids is Aquarius Iota, another twin-radiant shower that has distinct numbers from July 15 to August 25. Peak activity is August 6 with only about six members per hour seen in good conditions; the rays reach their highest point in the south at 2:45 am
After the Perseids, the last summer shower is the Kappa Cygnids. The limits of this shower are August 3 – 28, with a peak on August 17. Although the maximum speed is only three per hour, the current is classified as “slow moving and sometimes brilliant with glowing fireballs” and the careful observer can be well rewarded for the time spent. The hours before midnight are what you should choose for this shower. The beam is just north of the star Kappa Cygni and passes almost overhead at 10:30 p.m. Unfortunately, a nearly full moon will light up the sky most of the night.
A month of summer meteors
We include here radiant charts courtesy of Yoshihiko Shigeno of the Nippon Meteor Society (NMS), designed to make the distribution of visual meteor radiances easier to understand. Each map is divided into ten-day intervals – late July, early August and mid-August – and each detected radiant meteorite position is marked with a small “x”.
Note that at the end of July, the most active regions are in Capricorn, Aquarius and Perseus. By mid-August, meteor showers were widely scattered across Aquarius, with the Perseid shower becoming prominent.
SPACE.com will publish a comprehensive viewer’s guide to the upcoming Perseid shower in the night sky on August 9. Stay tuned!