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The Perseids Meteor Shower

They are called the Peresids because they seem to originate from the constellation Perseus although they can appear anywhere in the sky, their tails point back towards Perseus. Perseids can appear in any part of the sky, but their tails always point the same way due to their direction of travel.

When viewing conditions are ideal, you can see around 80 to 100 meteors per hour during the Perseids. Tonight, the Moon will be high in the sky, which will obscure all but the brightest shooting stars unfortunately mentioned Chris Lintott, the Times astronomer points out during his monthly stargazing roundup. As all stargazers know, the weather and cloud conditions could be another barrier and the forecast is for clouds over Wales, Ireland and the west of England and Scotland, though skies in the east of England and Scotland should be reasonably clear. In most parts of Australia there will be patchy cloud cover.

For sky watchers in North America, the watch begins after nightfall tonight and continues until sunrise on Wednesday. But this is the great meteor shower of august 2009 from the perseus constellation!

Enjoy the show, from the Orshe News Desk.