Annual meteor shower makes for stellar overnight viewing

“The Perseids build up to their peak slowly, so if that night is cloudy, try any early morning” through Friday, Deane Morrison advised in a Minnesota Starwatch report for August from the University of Minnesota.

The best shooting star show in years is set for Irish skies tonight, astronomers have said.

For most people the shower should be visible to the naked eye.

The annual meteor shower known as the Perseid Meteor Shower will hit later this week, dazzling the nights sky.

According to the Associated Press, a NASA expert says it’s because the moon is “almost new”, so there won’t be any moonlight to “mess with the show”.

“The cool thing about it is how they’re named; if you draw a line back along the path that the meteor travelled, they’re coming out of a particular part of the sky”. Anything streaking across the Earth’s evening atmosphere will always get a lot of attention and press coverage, especially if what we see can’t be explained. You can see the meteors’ burning specks probably shooting at 36 miles per second.

Scientists say the best time to watch is Thursday morning in the hours before dawn.

The Perseids were 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 global Space Station (ISS).

To get the best view you’ll need to be far from the glow of the city.

The American Meteor Society tracks fireball reports, so if you see one, you can report it to the American Meteor Society. As Swift-Tuttle nears the sun, the extreme heat vaporizes ice particles on the comet and bits of debris break off, leaving a trail of dust in the comet’s wake.

If you’re not heading out until this weekend, the show actually stretches from late July all the way through the third week of August.

Perseid meteors have been observed for about 2,000 years, NASA said.