Astronomy Buff

Best Views of the Aurigid Meteor Shower

by Tony on August 30th, 2007

This Saturday’s rare meteor shower has the potential to be very bright and interesting and given that it has only occurred about three times before (that we know of), it’s worth checking out.

Unfortunately, only people in the western part of the U.S. (and Alaska and Hawai’i), western Canada and Mexico are going to be able to see it. The meteor shower happens very early Saturday morning, with the peak of activity forecast to be 11:36UT (or 5:36 MDT, 7:36 EDT).

Where I live, the sun will be rising at 6:29 am, so I’ll already have a bit of sky glow when I get up. People east of Colorado won’t see anything as the Sun will already have risen during this time.

Best views will be the along the west coast and Alaska and Hawai’i. They will enjoy dark skies and because the radiant (the point in the sky from which the meteors originate) will be lower in the sky, the meteors will be very dramatic. There will be long, horizontal trails etched across the sky as the meteors burn in the atmosphere.

Below is the Earth from the viewpoint of the dust particles. If you are anywhere in the dark areas in this image, then you should be able to see something.

Illustration Credit: NASA

Technorati Tags: aurigid meteor shower, aurigids, comet kiess, meteor

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