The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight with up to 100 meteors per hour striking the sky overhead. We have the bad luck to have a nearly full moon, causing many of those meteors to go unnoticed in the glare of its bright disc. Nevertheless, the Perseid shower has many fast, bright meteors — even occasional fireballs — which cannot be hidden by the Moon.
Meteor Shower Tonight
Meteor showers get their name from the area of the sky from which they appear to radiate. The nearly parallel paths of the meteors seem to spread out from a point up in the sky, just as lines appear to converge on the horizon. That doesn’t mean that all of the meteors will stream from that point. Far from it! A given shower meteor can appear anywhere in the sky, since it can strike the earth’s atmosphere at any point. The direction of its path will move away from the radiant. This is rather like looking up at raindrops. They seem to come from a point overhead, even if they are not falling directly on you.
Learn more about Perseus at tonight’s 7:00 show, Legends of the Night Sky — Perseus and Andromeda, at the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium. The Planetarium is tucked away at the back of the Brevard Community College Cocoa campus.
The Astronaut Memorial Planetarium on the BCC Cocoa campus presents shows at 7, 8 and 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday evenings, with matinee shows at 2 and 3 p.m. Wednesdays.
Meteor Shower Tonight
Michaele Salahi;TV ‘Housewife’ runs off with Journey rocker
The best time for viewing will be in the pre-dawn hours when the radiant of the shower in Perseus will be high and the moon will be low in the west. Although the shower peaks tonight, it will taper off over the next week or so. You may still see one next week, so keep an eye out if you can get out before dawn.Meteor showers get their name from the area of the sky from which they appear to radiate. The nearly parallel paths of the meteors seem to spread out from a point up in the sky, just as lines appear to converge on the horizon. That doesn’t mean that all of the meteors will stream from that point. Far from it! A given shower meteor can appear anywhere in the sky, since it can strike the earth’s atmosphere at any point. The direction of its path will move away from the radiant. This is rather like looking up at raindrops. They seem to come from a point overhead, even if they are not falling directly on you.
Learn more about Perseus at tonight’s 7:00 show, Legends of the Night Sky — Perseus and Andromeda, at the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium. The Planetarium is tucked away at the back of the Brevard Community College Cocoa campus.
Michaele Salahi;TV ‘Housewife’ runs off with Journey rocker
The Astronaut Memorial Planetarium on the BCC Cocoa campus presents shows at 7, 8 and 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday evenings, with matinee shows at 2 and 3 p.m. Wednesdays.
