ASTRONOMY: Summer meteor showers about to rev up
Pull out the lawn chairs and get ready for a summer of spectacular meteor showers, says Tyler Nordgren, a physics professor at the University of Redlands.
While the first summer shower won't come along until July 28 and 29, when the Southern Delta Aquarid meteors arrive, Nordgren is encouraging people to do some sky watching tonight, in observance of National Meteor Day. The day kicks off a two-week period during which the number of meteors gradually picks up to a high of up to 60 per hour.
The Southern Delta Aquarids can produce about 20 meteors per hour at the peak and can be seen by looking east after midnight. The radiant point -- the place in the sky where all the meteors will appear to come from -- will be in the constellation Aquarius.
"To see a meteor shower, families need no equipment more complicated than lawn chairs or blankets. Just find a dark place away from streetlights, lie down and look up," said Nordgren, the author of "Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks."
"Starting at the end of July, we then slowly build to the most consistently impressive meteor shower of summer, the Perseid meteor shower of August 13 and 14," he said.
The full moon will impact viewing of the fainter meteors by the time the Perseids peak, so viewers should seek out a dark location the first week of August.
Meteors are small pieces of rock and metal that form a stream of debris when a comet breaks up.
The showers occur when Earth passes through the stream.
Nordgren was an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory and Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.
He was part of a team of seven astronomers and artists who converted the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Rover camera calibration targets into functioning sundials, and saw them land safely in Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum on Mars.
In November, a new sundial that Nordgren helped design will head for Mars when NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity launches from Florida.
Nordgren also is a member of the National Park Service Night Sky Team, which works to protect dark skies in the parks and promote astronomy education.
Submitted to The Press-Enterprise
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The meteor shower peak is expected to be Thursday night-Friday morning this week around midnight to 2am. The entire northern hemisphere can see it best if you get away from the city lights to a darker sky location. If you stay in the city you will only be able to see the bigger and brighter ones. Meteor showers last for days and when the experts talk about the expected peak that doesnt mean that it is done and over. Go out and look up. Be patient. They are usually measured in meteors per hour and this one is expected to be pretty active.
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