You might have read about the Perseids meteor shower in Alan Pickup’s Scotland Sky in August 2024. And the time has come to look up. The next two nights should bring a nice sight of this strongest meteor shower emphasized by the lack of Moon, which is gone before dark starts, weather allowing of course.
by Radim Stano
Here is where they will be coming from in the night sky:
Perseids will look like radiating from this location in the sky.
You can find the radiant of Perseids very easily, just look for Cassiopeia (this constellation is one of the easiest to find for me) and then a bit down from the most left star (called Segin or Epsilon Cassiopeiae). In ideal condition more than 100 meteors could be visible in an hour. The GMN Meteor flux website predicts 108 meteors per hour at the moment. But how many can you expect in reality? This is what the GMN has to say about that:
“ZHR stands for Zenithal Hourly Rate and is the number of meteors a single observer would see in one hour in ideal conditions: under a clear, moonless dark sky with the radiant directly overhead.
The ZHR is not the number of meteors an observer will see in reality – for example, during the peak of the Perseids when their ZHR is about 100, you can expect to see about one Persied every minute. However, if the Moon is full this number is easily halved, and if the radiant is low in the sky (below 30 degrees) you will see even less.”
Perseids in Scotland will get highest in the sky before dawn at around 64 degrees high making it the best time to see the most of them, but as from the definition above, it won’t be directly overhead, hence the number of meteors to see want be the ideal number predicted by the GMN flux webpage. But don’t get discouraged not to have the ideal conditions and reach the prediction of the maximum, Perseids are always a spectacle with clear sky!
Our meteor cameras have been capturing Perseids for a while now (the first detections are from 24.7.2024) and we will share some nice pictures and composites of multiple nights if the weather cooperates enough. For now, you can have a look at the increasing activity from the last few nights:
59 Perseids captured in the night of 9.8.2024 by SK0004 (Radim)
47 Perseids captures in the night of 6.8.2024 by Ian’s UK008A
71 Perseids captured in the night of 9.8.2024 by Horst’s camera DE000S
50 Perseids on Mark’s UK006E camera – 9.8.2024
Clear sky after ages for Pat’s UK0074 camera – 9.8.2024
Matt’s UK00CH camera captures some bright ones among 53 Perseids the night of 10.8.2024
And if you want to have a look what we have captured during the night, please go to our meteor camera webpage here. We have now 16 cameras in total, some more to come soon.
Clear skies and Look up!
Radim Stano