Perseid Meteor Shower 2013 Will Be a Brilliant Galactic Show, Book Your Party Now

The Perseid meteor shower, which is a major event for skywatchers, looks like it will not disappoint in 2013. Meteorologists say the moon will set before midnight on the peak nights of the Perseid meteor shower.

The Perseid meteor shower happens every year in mid-August. The Perseid meteor shower happens when the Earth intersects the orbit of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which is a periodic comet with an orbital period of approximately 130 years. Swift-Tuttle is a fairly large comet, with a nucleus about 16 miles across. The Swift-Tuttle Comet was discovered in 1862 by two skywatchers, Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle in independent viewings. Tsuruhiko Kiuchi saw the comet in 1992. It is expected to return again around 2122. Although the Swift-Tuttle comet won’t be seen again in our lifetimes, it is the parent body to the Perseid meteor shower that occurs every August.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust will benefit from the Perseid meteor shower when a party that is being assembled to watch the sky will be thrown on Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Integratron in Landers, California. The party starts at 7 p.m. and runs until midnight.

The Perseid meteor shower is one of the best meteor showers of the year. Sometimes fifty meteors per hour can be seen. The Southern California Desert Video Astronomers will project live images from deep-space telescopes onto the side of the Integratron building. The astronomers will use a state-of-the-art projection system. Another festival of lights, The Night Sky Festival, is a public astronomy event for all ages, that will also be celebrated on Aug. 10 8 p.m.-1 a.m. on Aug. 10 in Richland, Calif. Festival-goers can watch Perseid meteors and use hosted telescopes to glimpse planets, stars, star clusters and galaxies.

The debris field begins to be visible on July 17 and will leave the field on Aug. 24. Perseid meteors can be seen any night during this period. The best time to see the Perseid meteor shower is after midnight, with the very best time being one to two hours before dawn. By the first week in August, you may see as many as six to eight meteors per hour. The rate increases to a predicted peak between Aug. 12 and 13 when as many as 100 comets can be seen per hour.

by Tony Sokol