Tonight is going to be a huge meteor shower. The Perseids 2010 is an annual event that builds to a crescendo in the wee hours of Friday, Aug. 13. This year better than most as the moon won’t be within the sky to distract from the Perseids 2010 meteors. From midnight to dawn, meteor watchers who venture out beyond city lights should be able to observe up to 75 meteors an hour coming out of the northeast sky. No telescope is required.
Perseids 2010 has a meteor watch
Summer stargazing is going to end with a huge shower tonight that is named Perseids 2010. Venus, Saturn, Mars and also the moon can be shown together on the western horizon as a “tight conjunction” at sundown as outlined by NASA. At 10 p.m., these planets will all fall together below the horizon marking the official start of Perseids 2010. If you would like to know where you should be looking at 10 p.m. for the meteors to start raining, try looking at the Perseus constellation. As the Perseus constellation rises and the night deepens, meteor rates will increase. For sheer numbers, the best time to meteor watch is during the darkest hours before dawn on Friday morning, when at least one meteor a minute could possibly be seen.
Meteor watching suggestions
Tips for watching meteors and enjoying them probably the most are given by Alan Boyle from MSNBC. Get away from the light pollution causing the sky to be lit up all night in the cities. A higher elevation is going to help you a bit. You’ll need something to keep you warm and to lie on while being on your car up against windshields. Wear something to keep you warm. It will help to get some mood music to play. Give your eyes plenty of time to adjust and look straight up. You won’t be able to see the Perseids 2010 very well until after midnight has hit. .
Tips on meteor photography
If wanting to take pictures, the meteor shower tonight is a good place to do it. Get some tips from Pop Photo on how to get a good photo. City lights could really hurt the picture with long-exposures and wide-open apertures. Your finger on a shutter button will really help keep the images from being blurred with a cable release. Put something within the foreground to help your picture to look like more than just light streaks. Find the right ISO and exposure time with a wide, fast lens to help take the picture. Then keep shooting.
Why Perseids 2010 is going to be so amazing
Whenever the earth goes through the dust cloud that is called the Swift-Tuttle comet, Perseids 2010 happens. The Swift-Tuttle, reports the Christian Science Monitor, only is seen each and every 135 years when it gets close enough to the sun to heat up. 1992 was when the comet was last seen. The dust stream the comet has gets thicker every time is passes Earth. The dust stream Swift-Tuttle has left behind is denser than usual, and Earth will pass through that.
NASA
science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/05aug_perseids/” href=”http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/05aug_perseids/
MSNBC
cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/11/4869749-see-and-hear-the-meteor-show
Pop Photo
popphoto.com/features/how/2010/08/how-photographing-perseid-meteor-shower
Christian Science Monitor
csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0812/Meteor-shower-August-2010-how-you-can-get-the-best-view
