Tonight, August 11th, 2012 may be considered the best time of the year to see a meteor shower. Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office says “We expect to see meteor rates as high as 100 per hour.” This is all due to the Earth’s passage through the debris left by the comet Swift-Tuttle. The best viewing time will be Saturday night/Sunday morning (August 11th-12th) from midnight to dawn. In addition to the meteors, Jupiter and Venus will be quite bright and visible in the eastern sky.
Planet diagram for the morning of August 12th, from earthsky.org
Also keep an eye out for the large red star, Aldebaran in the east. So get away from the light pollution and check it out! It’s going to be an absolutely beautiful night!
Perseid Meteor Shower photo from Planetsave.com
BumbleBeast 