ONE of the “best” meteor showers of the year is heading to Irish skies TONIGHT – and onlookers can see up to 100 shooting stars per hour.
The Perseid shower will reach its peak activity with 20 times more shooting stars than a normal night – and an astronomy expert has said “no one should sleep”.
And people living in dark rural areas may be lucky to see one or more per minute instead of one every 10 minutes.
The annual meteor shower is the debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, which comes around every 20 to 200 years and was last seen in 1992.
The average speed for a Perseid meteor is around 58km per second, which will decorate the sky with fast, bright meteor trains.
Meteor trains appear when the air in front of the meteor is squashed and heated to thousands of degrees Celsius.
Smaller meteors then vaporise and leave behind a bright trail of light behind them, while the larger meteors can explode into fireballs, and almost none of them hit the ground.
If they do hit the ground, they will then be called a meteorite.
According to Astronomy Ireland, Perseid meteors are caused by a swarm of tiny dust particles “about the size of grains of sand”.
They added: “The comet has been around the Sun hundreds or thousands of times and left debris all around its orbit.
“Even though the comet takes 130 years to go around the Sun, and was last seen in Irish skies in 1992, we plough through this field of debris every August and get this strong meteor shower.
“We collide with the tiny particles at 130,000 mph (36 miles per second) and they burn up, harmlessly, high in the atmosphere many times higher than even jet aircraft fly and so they are no danger to those watching on the ground, but they do make an awesome sight to the naked eye that everyone can enjoy.”
Urgent warning
David Moore, the editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, is urging the public to count how many they see every 15 minutes and record them at astronomy.ie.
He said: “These simple counts have real scientific value as we only know how these meteor showers develop by members of the public counting them while they view the beautiful spectacle of nature that is a meteor shower.
“You do not need any telescopes or binoculars, just normal human eyesight, oh, and a clear sky, but a few clouds won’t spoil the view especially as you have all the hours of darkness to see them and this shower is known for producing some brilliant fireballs.
“I remember seeing one that light up the whole countryside like daylight for a few seconds!
“The best time to view is from about 10pm when the sky gets dark and you can watch as long as you like, until dawn the next morning if you want to make a night of it.”
He added: “This a a FREE ‘Celestial Fireworks’ display courtesy of Mother Nature, that is visible over nearly the entire planet!”
How to watch the meteor shower?
The best time to catch the meteor shower in its full glory will be between midnight and 5:30 am, when the sky is pitch dark.
However, it may be difficult to spot it in light-polluted areas such as busy towns and cities, so they are encouraged to seek a dark area outside of the area that has no light pollution – even no street lamps.
For those living in the capital, Phoenix Park and Bull Island would be ideal spots to take in the sights as there’s less light pollution.
Make sure that your star-gazing spot has an unobstructed view of the horizon and above – away from treelines or cityscapes is best.
Binoculars might not always be needed – or helpful.
They can limit your view of the sky, and in trying to get a more detailed look, you could miss shooting stars out of frame.