Events

A warm summer evening is the perfect time to be out under a dark sky enjoying the stars. All the better is there is a meteor shower to add to the already spectacular show. On the evening of August 12th the Perseid Meteor Shower will peak.

A typical Perseid shower will produce up to 60-100 meteors an hour, what regular meteor observers would call 60-100ZHR This is what a typical observer would see given a dark sky and good conditions, a metric called zenith hourly rate or ZHR. You can estimate this rate by counting the meteors seen in a shorter period. If you count all that you see for ten minutes and multiply by 6 you would have a reasonable estimate of ZHR. As the rate of meteor arrival is irregular it is necessary to count for ten minutes or more to achieve a decent average rate. Conditions such as light pollution or clouds will result in some faint meteors being missed and a lower count.

With new Moon on the 9th, there will be no moonlight to obscure the meteors, a beautiful, dark sky to enjoy through the night. The spectacular planetary conjunction in the evening sky will be at it's peak allowing for a great night of skywatching.