HELENA — If you look up to the skies this weekend, make sure to keep your eyes peeled, as the annual Perseid meteor shower will be back.
“This is great because anyone can observe the sky, right? And all you need is your eyes and maybe a blanket and get away from city lights and look up,” says Executive Director at Montana Learning Center, Ryan Hannahoe.
The meteor shower is visible every year from July to August. The peak will occur on late Saturday, August 12 night into the early morning of August 13, just before sunrise.
The meteor shower is caused by the earth passing through the debris left behind by the Swift-Tuttle Comet.
Hannahoe says that they are predicting up to 600 meteors on the peak night. To put that in perspective the center’s automated meteor detection system usually only picks up about 30-50 meteors on any other given clear night.
While tickets to the Montana Learning Center’s meteor shower events are sold out, Hannahoe has a few suggestions on how to bolster your meteor viewing chances.
For starters, make sure to get away from city lights. Secondly, any time after midnight, and before the sunlight begins to show is good for viewing. Thirdly, point your eyes towards the northeast.
So, this weekend, take a venture into the great outdoors of Montana and find a spot for you and your family and friends to take it all in. And who knows? For some, viewing this celestial event may just spark a life-long interest.
“I was a Boy Scout attending an aerospace camp as a kid. And we were coming back from the Air and Space Museum, got off the bus, and there were telescopes set up at the scout camp in the field. And we saw meteors, you know, streak across the sky and that turned out to be the Perseid meteor shower. And so, for me, I mean that's how I got my start in astronomy was viewing this meteor shower, you know, almost 30 years ago,” says Hannahoe.
Editor note: The original version of this article incorrectly stated the peak of the meteor show was Sunday night to Monday morning. The peak of the meteor shower is Saturday evening into Sunday morning.
