A Moon and a Window

This is the week of the Perseid meteor shower, one of the best light shows in town.

Of course, nothing is simple.  Normally to watch the Perseids one would simply go outside at night and look up, but this year the task is complicated by the moon, which will be just about full at the same time as the meteor shower's peak.

What to do!? What to do!? Well, above all, stay calm.  There is good news.

First of all, get out there anyway. The full moon is spectacular in August. Grab a pair of binoculars and check it out.

Secondly, the meteors hit their stride what my Dad used to call the "small hours" of the morning -- from about 2.30 to 4.30 a.m.   There is a window of opportunity, coming up tonight (well, Wednesday morning to be precise) when the moon will be set and the meteors will be easy to view. All you have to do is set the alarm.

The Earth collides with the debris left in the wake of the Swift-Tuttle comet every summer on August 12. Those tiny particles of dust, ice, gravel and alien junk blaze bright as they connect with the Earth's atmosphere. It only takes something the size of a grain of sand to flare up there. 

This is the easiest of the meteor showers to spot, coming as it does in mid-summer when it is lovely to be out of doors at night. 

It takes the name 'Perseid' because it radiates from the constellation Perseus, in the northern sky. In the early morning, Perseus is almost overhead, so just looking up will do the trick.  If you want to find Perseus otherwise... find Casseopia, the flattened W that is opposite the Big Dipper. (Line up the pointers in the Dipper... follow to the North Star... keep going and you'll run into the 'W')  the left side of this W points down to Perseus.  The right side points straight down to Andromeda, and about a third of the way back up is the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.4 million light years away. 

And while you are about it, if you have binoculars, take a moment to check out Perseus -- absolutely lovely, it is full of star clusters and looks like someone broke a diamond necklace in the midst of it all.