This year’s Perseid meteor shower looks set to be one of the best of recent years, with near perfect viewing conditions for observers in the UK. The peak of the shower will be at around 2300 BST on Thursday 12 August but activity will be strong into the pre-dawn hours of Friday morning. This is just two days after New Moon, meaning that our celestial neighbour will not provide any natural light pollution to spoil the view.

An image of a Perseid meteor taken during the 2009 shower. The meteor appears as a bright streak running from top centre to bottom right. The stars of the constellation of Cygnus and the Milky Way are visible on its left and the bright star Vega can be seen on its right. Credit: Pete Lawrence

The meteors appear to originate from a point in the constellation of Perseus (hence the name Perseid) that will be rising in the northeast at the time of the shower, but individual shooting stars can appear anywhere in the sky. Unlike many other astronomical phenomena, watching meteors needs no special equipment and in fact they are best viewed with the unaided eye.

This year there are many ways to share your observations. The Twitter Meteorwatch project will allow people to tweet their observations, which will be displayed online on a “meteor map”, showing where the most meteors are being seen around the world.

“Meteorwatch is the perfect opportunity for astronomers and non-astronomers alike to come together to experience this wonder of our Solar system,” says Adrian West, organiser of the Twitter Meteorwatch.

“We hope that thousands of people will get outside and look up this week. You won’t have to wait long; if you get as far away as possible from streetlights you’ll see a shooting star every few minutes – maybe many more than that. And if you’re under cloud, you can follow all the action on Twitter using the #Meteorwatch hashtag.”

The Twitter Meteorwatch is being run in association with the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) and the British Astronomical Association (BAA), whose Project Perseid 2010 is looking to gather valuable scientific observations from keen stargazers.

The BAA’s Meteor Section Director Dr John Mason explains: “Project Perseid 2010 will allow us to gather as many good observations as possible from around the world. This will provide important information about the dust which causes the meteors, allowing us to better predict future showers. Anyone can submit observations by using the guidance notes and observing form available on our website, and so take part in real science.”

The relatively warm summer nights make this meteor shower one of the more comfortable to view, but some simple equipment can make things even easier. Warm clothing and a deck chair will allow you to sit outside in comfort all night and you should take along a red-filtered torch, a watch set accurately to the speaking clock, and some paper and pens, all of which will help you record what you see. More serious observers should take copies of the BAA report forms on which to record their observations.

The Perseid meteors are caused by particles burning up as they streak into Earth’s upper atmosphere at 135 000 miles per hour (216 000 kilometres per hour).  The material comes from Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which last passed near the Sun in 1992. Enhanced activity accompanied that return and was evident for several years afterwards. The 2005 and 2007 returns of the shower proved fairly ‘normal’ whilst in 2008, there was a notable sharp spike in activity rising to in excess of 100 meteors per hour after the ‘normal’ maximum.

CONTACTS

Adrian West
Twitter Meteorwatch
Mob: +44 (0)7768 208124
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Dr John Mason
Director, Meteor Section, British Astronomical Association
Project Perseid 2010
Mob: +44 (0)7901 890061
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Steve Owens
Twitter Meteorwatch and Project Perseids 2010
Beyond the International Year of Astronomy, and British Astronomical Association
Mob: +44 (0)7879 058120
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Dr Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3307 / 4582
Mob: +44 (0)794 124 8035
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

FURTHER INFORMATION

Twitter Meteorwatch
http://meteorwatch.org/

British Astronomical Association’s Project Perseid 2010
http://britastro.org/ProjectPerseid2010

British Astronomical Association’s Project Perseid 2010 report forms
http://britastro.org/baa/images/stories/sections/meteor/Meteor_Section_Visual_Report_Blank.xls

Royal Astronomical Society
http://www.ras.org.uk/

IMAGE

A high-resolution image is available from http://britastro.org/blog/?p=417

Caption: An image of a Perseid meteor taken during the 2009 shower. The meteor appears as a bright streak running from top centre to bottom right. The stars of the constellation of Cygnus and the Milky Way are visible on its left and the bright star Vega can be seen on its right. Credit: Pete Lawrence

NOTES FOR EDITORS

METEORWATCH

Meteorwatch.org is run by amateur astronomer Adrian West, and is a legacy project of Beyond the International Year of Astronomy, supported by the Royal Astronomical Society, the British Astronomical Association, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and the Institute of Physics. Meteorwatch 2009 attracted 20,000 participants worldwide and was the top trending topic on Twitter for two nights running.

ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS www.ras.org.uk), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. The RAS organizes scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognizes outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 3500 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.

BRITISH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION

The British Astronomical Association (BAA: www.britastro.org) is Britain’s leading organisation for observational astronomy. Formed in 1890, the BAA has an international reputation for the quality of its observational and scientific work. Membership is open to all persons interested in astronomy.

The Meteor Section of the BAA encourages amateurs to become involved in meteor astronomy through active observation, Section meetings, and contributions to the Section Newsletter and other publications of the Association.