Perseid Meteor Shower 2018

Heads up, my friends!

They're back. Time for the Perseids, the most reliable meteor shower of the year. But you don't have to wait to see some potentially amazing meteors. New research has concluded that the Perseid event produces more fireballs - meteors brighter than the planets, Jupiter and Venus - than any other shower. There's even more good news. Since fireballs are random meteors, you don't have to watch the skies after midnight to see them. Anytime after sunset works. One of the most spectacular fireballs I ever saw cut across at least 120 degrees of steel blue sky about half an hour after sunset.

The NASA/JPL time lapse photo above shows scores of meteors radiating from the constellation Perseus in 2009.  Best viewing will be after midnight on both Saturday and Sunday night. The best viewing this year should be on Sunday night at 9:00 PM, Eastern Time, as the earth  moves through a rich debris belt. The new moon - no moon - will make for excellent viewing both nights. With clear skies and no moon you should easily see 70 to 90 meteors per hour or more if you can avoid light pollution.

Here's how to enjoy the Perseids. If the night is clear, find a dark location, take a lounge chair or blanket and bug spray outside between midnight and dawn and look into the northeast sky. In that sky, you'll see a lopsided "W" known as the constellation Cassiopeia, an easy marker for its neighbor, Perseus. The shower radiates from this point as it rotates across the sky, but it's important to note that meteors may occur anywhere in the sky dome. Furthermore, you will likely see some random meteors that will not fit the pattern.

For more news about this year's Perseids visit this page at space.com.