Perseid Meteor Shower Tonight Aug 12 2007

[Tony Clifton]

A Mother's Day delight

Published on Jul 31, 2007

This year Thais might be able to celebrate Mother's Day during a meteor shower.

Astronomers said the annual perseid meteor shower was known as one of the most beautiful of its kind, second only to the renowned Leonid meteor shower.

The perseid meteors will appear in the atmosphere from the constellation Perseus, which will rise in the northeast sky at around 10pm on August 12. The spectacle will continue into the early morning, reaching a peak at around 4am to 5am, said Worrawit Tanwithibandit of the Bandit Observatory Tower in Chachoengsao's Plaeng Yao district. "Half of the perseid meteor shower will be intensely bright. Most of the meteors will appear white and yellow and will travel at a speed of about 59 kilometres per second," Worrawit said.

"To witness the shower, binoculars are not necessary as you can see it with the naked eye by looking in a northeasterly direction at a 45-degree angle from the horizontal. The shower can normally be seen in most parts of the world including throughout Thailand."

However, the only uncertainty is if there is a lot of cloud cover, Worrawit said.

"In clear skies it can be seen easily. Just find a dark area with as few surrounding lights as possible," he said.

"But I am not sure how much of the shower we will see this year as we have missed chances for 10 years now due to bad weather and too much cloud."

Astronomer Boonraksa Sunthorntham, director of Sirindhorn Observatory Tower in Chiang Mai, said clear skies would allow Thais to see meteors at a rate of 60 to 100 per hour.

The perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The phenomenon is named after the constellation of Perseus. Normally the shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14.

[track61]

I saw this a couple years back from another part of the world and it was fairly spectacular.

There is another event tonight if anyone is interested.

From RedTram News : "halfway up the southern sky: Jupiter and the gibbous Moon converge on August 11th and 12th for a close encounter in the constellation Sagittarius: sky map. It's a grand sight visible even from light-polluted cities.For a while the Moon will interfere with the Perseids, lunar glare wiping out all but the brightest meteors. Yin-yang. The situation reverses itself at 2 am on Tuesday morning, August 12th, when the Moon sets and leaves behind a dark sky for the Perseids. The shower will surge into the darkness, peppering the sky with dozens and perhaps hundreds of meteors until dawn."

[londonthai]

it's every single year, for donkey years - I remember it yet from the childhood when doing holiday camping, in big towns you really can't spot it because of the buildings and pollution