Perseid meteor shower 2013: Watch online, right here
The Perseid meteor shower is hitting its peak this weekend, and you can watch the action live, right here.
Sky watchers who want to see nature’s fireworks show in person should plan to look to the heavens between 10:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. PDT, but the online telescope Slooh.com is offering an early sneak peak at the annual August meteor shower beginning at 4 p.m. Pacific time.
The live video feed, which you can see above, will be streamed from the website’s telescope in the Canary Islands.
And if you can’t escape your home or cubicle on Sunday night, you can keep watching the show through most of the evening.
This year’s Perseid meteor shower should be especially dazzling, thanks in part to a minimum of light interference from a thin, waning moon. Sky watchers can expect to see as many as 100 meteors zip through the sky per hour, NASA officials said.
The Perseid meteor shower occurs each August as the Earth passes through the dust and debris left in the wake of the comet Swift-Tuttle. These stray bits of comet dust slam into our atmosphere at 132,000 mph, where they burn up and create light streaks across the sky.
NASA recently declared the Perseid shower to be the fireball champion of the annual meteor showers, because it has the highest concentration of especially bright meteors.
If you plan to watch from outside, try to get to the darkest area you can find. Bring a lounge chair and a blanket and make yourself comfortable.
Then relax and look toward the northeastern quadrant of the sky.
Happy viewing!
