Monday, August 10, 2009
Perseid Meteor Shower - morning August 13 2009
Northern sky as seen from Darwin on the morning of August 13 at 4:00 am. Click to embiggen.The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks on the morning of Thursday August 13. Despite this being a quite reasonable meteor shower, and probably in outburst this year, for most of Australia, the radiant is below the horizon, and only the very occasional meteor shooting up from the northern horizon will be seen. (UPDATE: to make this a bit clearer, anyone south of Brisbane will see only the occasional meteor, say maybe one or two per hour, the further north of Brisbane you are, the more meteors you will see).
You can check predictions for your local area at the NASA meteor flux estimator (choose 7 Perseids and 12-13 August 2009). People around Alice Springs and Darwin have the best chance of seeing meteors, possibly as many as one every 3 minutes, although the waning Moon's light may interfere.
To see the meteors, you will need to be up around 3:00 am local time on the 13th, with best views 4:00 am-5:30 am. The meteor shower will be located due North, with the radiant just above the northern horizon. You can follow the Perseids at the International Meteor Organisations live website.
(UPDATE to the update: You can also follow the Perseids on Twitter #meteorwatch
Note, those of you who have Stellarium, the meteor shower you see when you turn on the Meteor button in the star and planet visibility dialogue is the Leonids, the radiant is only correct for 18 November, it only coincidentally is vaguely in the area of the Perseids)
Labels: Meteors, Observational Astronomy
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 9:56 pm 
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This wasn't quite clear from my original post. No, it can't be seen from Sydney, yes, it can be seen from Indonesia. To get a good idea of the rates you would get, follow the flux estimator link in the maid body of the post.
i'm getting a strong feeling that the answer to my question is a No base on the comments and your entry but anyway, can it be seen from melbourne?
# posted by 
: 10:06 pm
: 10:06 pm
Hi there..can it be seen at adelaide suburbs tonight? its a fine day out there!!
# posted by : 10:34 pm
: 10:34 pm
Umm, folks, if you need to be north of Brisbane to see the shower, then you can't see it from Melbourne or Adelaide (we are way south of Brisbane, well, you might see about one meteor an hour shooting up from below the horizon, but no meteor shower as such)
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:06 am
: 12:06 am
what will be the precised time that i will be able to see it at brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:12 am
: 12:12 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:13 am
: 12:13 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:14 am
: 12:14 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:16 am
: 12:16 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:18 am
: 12:18 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:20 am
: 12:20 am
please professor you soung like a broken record...did you read anything????
You can check predictions for your local area at the NASA meteor flux estimator (choose 7 Perseids and 12-13 August 2009). People around Alice Springs and Darwin have the best chance of seeing meteors, possibly as many as one every 3 minutes, although the waning Moon's light may interfere.
You can check predictions for your local area at the NASA meteor flux estimator (choose 7 Perseids and 12-13 August 2009). People around Alice Springs and Darwin have the best chance of seeing meteors, possibly as many as one every 3 minutes, although the waning Moon's light may interfere.
# posted by : 12:21 am
: 12:21 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:22 am
: 12:22 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:27 am
: 12:27 am
may i please ask for a precised time to see the shower in brisbane, and how long will the shower go for?
# posted by : 12:28 am
: 12:28 am
After checking out, Jakarta (Indonesia) downtown area... Estimation on meteor shower will start at approximately 01.00 AM with its peak at approximately 05.00 AM today... Bad news for us that lives in Jakarta, the city lights are strong and dust particles made it even worse...
# posted by : 4:45 am
: 4:45 am
Professor Lucasdale, the section in the post which says "To see the meteors, you will need to be up around 3:00 am local time on the 13th, with best views 4:00 am-5:30 am. " is the bit you wanted. This is pretty much the same for everywhere from Brisbane to Darwin. You could have also used the flux estimator.
The meteor shower is limited by when the radiant rises on one hand (a bit before 3 am but it needs to be reasonably above the horizon before you have a chance of seeing meteors) and when the sky becomes too light before dawn (around 5:30)
looks like there was a peak of around 160 meteors per hour around 6 pm, long before the radiant rose in Australia.
The meteor shower is limited by when the radiant rises on one hand (a bit before 3 am but it needs to be reasonably above the horizon before you have a chance of seeing meteors) and when the sky becomes too light before dawn (around 5:30)
looks like there was a peak of around 160 meteors per hour around 6 pm, long before the radiant rose in Australia.
Ian I wish I had stumbled across your site last night. You have been the only site I can (still) find with viewing information about the shower!
I was VERY dissapointed not to find any information on the major Australian astronomy websites including http://www.astronomy2009.org.au/.
Thank you very much for your explanation of times and site links!
I was VERY dissapointed not to find any information on the major Australian astronomy websites including http://www.astronomy2009.org.au/.
Thank you very much for your explanation of times and site links!
approximately what time would it be seen in Newfoundland,Canada on the early morning of August 13th 2009?
# posted by : 12:24 pm
: 12:24 pm
to find out when it is just visit http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html and enter in the information which can be found using any search engine
# posted by : 3:22 pm
: 3:22 pm
Will you be able to see it in Glenn County, California; it's about an hour and 45 minutes away from Sacramento, California?
To all the north Americans. The Perseids are easily seen form all you locations, the radiant is reasonably high around 10 pm local time, but the rates are best from about midnight to the early morning. Look north.
The rates will not be as good for the 13-14th as the 12th-13th but still should be good enough to reward viewing. Again, the meteor flux estimator link in the main post will give you a reasonable idea of the rates at your approximate locations.
The rates will not be as good for the 13-14th as the 12th-13th but still should be good enough to reward viewing. Again, the meteor flux estimator link in the main post will give you a reasonable idea of the rates at your approximate locations.
people....read the post its all clear!!! so many daft questions here I cant believe it!!!! embiggen your ability to understand what you read :-)
my husband and i were in our hot tub at about 1:00 am on aug 13,09and hapened to see a shooting star? but after that we proceeded to see about 15 in 2 hours and i was starting to get scared because i had no idea that there was a meteor shower happening, we live in columbus ohio on the north end one street away from shrock road.the reason i was scared is about 2 weeks ago at my moms house we were all sitting out side and my husband saw a bright green light in the sky and then it went away,he is convinced it was extra terestrial and i was woried then
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# posted by : 4:38 am
: 4:38 am << Home
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