This month marks one of the northern hemisphere’s best meteor showers of the year, the Perseids, and already, members are capturing a few streaks through Slooh’s All-Sky camera and in their Slooh images.
This year, scientists predict that the shower will peak between the hours of 1130 UTC and 1400 UTC on August 12 - prime observing hours for the pacific US timezone at 0330 PDT through sunrise Tuesday morning. Almost as much fun as the main event are the nights immediately preceding and following peak hours, with the most significant numbers of “extra-curricular” Perseids typically prominent in the hours just before dawn.
With that in mind, because the actual peak occurs during daylight hours on Teide, we’ll feature a special Slooh Mission Alert on Tuesday night, August 12, at 11pm EDT / 8pm PDT - that’s 0300 UTC Wednesday morning. We’ll target some better-known objects in and around the constellation Perseus, we’ll talk more about the Perseids and meteor showers in general, and we’ll even try listening for meteor pings through one of several live public radio streams.
The following slideshow is an introduction to meteor showers and the Perseids. To view the fullscreen version, select “View Slideshare Presentation” at the bottom left corner of the slideshow.
