Shooting stars show lights up North-east skies

Although cloud cover in some parts of the county was patchy last night, star gazers in County Cavan and nationwide were treated to a spectacular display of shooting stars as the annual Perseid meteor shower reached its peak.

The shower was keenly anticipated this year as they coincided with a new moon, creating the ideal dark sky conditions, and were also briefly joined overhead by a bright man-made star, the worldwide Space Station (ISS).

Potentially up to 100 meteors per hour Wednesday night into this morning, the peak happened about 4 a.m., according to NASA.

They’re so named for their apparent origin point in the Perseus constellation, in the northern celestial hemisphere. Meteors will probably begin flying soon after nightfall, and under dark skies you could see as many as 50 per hour.

The state weather bureau has forecast cloudless skies over most of the country except in Bataan, Zambales and Pangasinan Wednesday night, when the Perseids meteor shower will be seen until before sunrise Thursday.

Meteors lit up the sky before dawn Thursday.

But Christie said if you do not get a chance to peer through a telescope at the night sky, don’t worry.

Meteor showers are comet leftovers. With the lunar phase approaching a new moon, there should be little in the way of natural interference.

As Matt Sampson explains, this year’s Perseid meteor shower is expected to be stellar.

An annual event, the Perseid shower occurs when the Earth moves through a trail of dust left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 (earth) years. Four or five meteors in 10 or 15 minutes – bright ones – is quite good going.

The Perseids meteor shower will have eyes on the sky for the next few nights. Try to keep your gaze on the sky for as long as possible, many people have missed that flawless meteor when they looked away.

If you head toward the Pine Barrens and you see the glint of Atlantic City lights in the distance, you’ve gone too far.