Caoimhín's Content

I only recently put up a piece providing a look ahead to the month of July, but it was just an overview, so I’m going to cover one thing that I left out, the upcoming meteor showers. Meteors, of course, can be tricky to see. Looking at the sky from a city, especially if the Moon is close to full, is far from the ideal conditions for spotting meteors. The time of year also matters, down to the day, and early in the month this month, we’re not going to have too much luck. There are always some meteors, and one place that they often radiate from is the Antihelion point, directly opposite the Sun in the night sky. There is usually about 10 meteors an hour going across the middle of the sky, a Zenith Hourly Rate of 10 is roughly the baseline that we normally have here on Earth. You take take a look back to one of my previous posts where I talk about the background rate in a little bit more detail.

Although we probably will see a few meteors in the sky, we won’t see much more than the baseline rate in early and mid-July. However, there are meteor showers that are technically running already. The Alpha Capricornid meteor shower runs from the 2nd of July to the 14th of August, but its maximum will be on the 31st of July, it’s so far from its peak that it’s adding roughly 0 meteors to the sky. There is another meteor shower also running at the moment, the Southern Delta Aquarids from the 11th of July to the 22nd of August, but it also doesn’t peak until the 31st, so it’s also giving roughly 0. Moving a little bit closer to morning time, the radiants of these meteor showers do rise up a little bit higher, but they remain low enough to the South. These meteor showers would look a little bit better from closer to the equator or little into the Southern Hemisphere, but even though meteors will radiate from their specific radiants, they can appear pretty much anywhere in the sky. Pushing a little later into the month, we see the Perseids. They’re just beginning, although they run from the 16th of July to the 24th of August, they’re not going to peak until the 12th of August. Although they can eventually reach the very high ZHR of 100, we are going to have to wait another few weeks before they get to that peak. Closer to the end of the month, the Moon will come into view, reaching and then passing its fullest point. A couple of other meteor showers will pop up as well, the Gamma Draconids for example. They also peak in late July, around the 28th, but have a very short of just a few days, as well as being a very minor shower that won’t contribute many extra meteors even at its peak. Also peaking in late July are the Piscs Austrinids around the 29th. They do run from around mid-July to almost mid-August , but their radiant is very low down and they also do not add very many meteors. Pushing up to the night of the 31st, the peak of a few showers and just after the peaks of a few more, the Moon has almost gotten back to new, putting out of the sky for much of the night. With a ZHR of about 25 from the SOuthern Delta Aquariids, about 5 from the Alpha Capricornids, about 4 from the Antihelion point and a few from a couple of the other background meteor radiants in the sky to give us about 10, plus one or two each from the Piscis Austrinids and Gamma Draconids, should bring us up to about 45. Unfortunately we probably won’t have any from the Perseids just yet, we’re not quite far enough into August for them.

As always, these meteor showers, and most astronomical events, will look a lot better in the countryside. However, even with a Zenith Hourly Rate up to about 45, we won’t see many meteors. Despite four overlapping meteor showers, we won’t see too many because these meteors showers are comparatively minor. Even the Southern Delta Aquariids peaking at 25, they’re certainly more major than the Alpha Capricornids at just 5, but they aren’t very big compared to other showers. The Perseids are a real major shower, with a peak of up to 100. Although there are meteor showers going on in late July, and it’s always worth seeing a couple of meteors flying across the sky, even with multiple minor meteor showers going on, you might not get to see as many meteors as you would from just one major meteor shower. You’ll have a better chance in a good location, out in the countryside under a dark sky, no light pollution, with the Moon is very low in the sky or out of the sky altogether. The more of the sky you can see, the more meteors you might spot. If you could look through a big fisheye lens to curve the whole sky into your view, that would be great. Failing that, lying back on your back looking straight up into the sky will give you the best field of view for seeing as many meteors as possible during a shower. A bit later at night would also be better, even as early as midnight the radiant of the Piscis Austrinids will be under the horizon. Earlier than about 10:30 in the countryside, there will be a little bit of sunlight glow, and earlier than 9:50 you won’t be able to see the glow of the Milky Way, or fainter meteors. Waiting until a little after midnight will give you darker conditions, and ensure that the radiants of the meteors are a little higher in the sky.

For the whole time that I spent recording the video, the rate of meteors was set to 45, and I hadn’t seen a single one by about three-quarters of the way through. This is including spans of several seconds, cut from the final video, where I just stared at the screen and waited. There is a chance of course that I missed a few. Also, I was hopping through dates and running through time quickly, time needs to be running at normal speed, that’s one of the prerequisites for seeing meteors in Stellarium. However, waiting for a few seconds isn’t going to be enough. 45 meteors an hour is slightly less than 1 a minute, so it takes a couple of minutes to see any. Furthermore, there’s a little bit of random chance involved, the meteors don’t run like clockwork, you might get a bunch or a flurry of them in the space just a couple of minutes and then a gap of another couple of minutes where you don’t see any. This can be true even at much much higher rates, even going up to the standard Perseids rate of 100. I will talk more about the Perseids when were into August, around the 12th and the 13th when the Perseids will be peaking.100 meteors passing the zenith every hour is almost two a minute, so it will still take a minute to see one or two meteors, and I’m not quite patient enough to stare at the screen for a whole minute, especially if nothing’s going on. Even turning the rate up to 1000 meteors an hour, a rate achieved by some historical meteor storms, I still wasn’t seeing many meteors, and so I got a little worried and decided to go even higher.

The Leonid meteor shower is normally a major meteor shower, but a little less productive than the Perseids, averaging closer to 50 ZHR. However, in 1833 and 1866, as well as a few other times in human history, the Leonids have produced hundreds of thousands of meteors. Some estimates put the ZHR as high as 150 000 for these events, known as meteor storms. At this absolutely crazy high rate of meteor showers, there’s plenty to be seen, the sky seems alive with streaks of light. IN previous videos about meteor showers I spoke about those incredibly high rates that we occasionally see, and they are very occasional. Massive Leonid storms seem to occur only about once a century, and we may get another around 2030 or so. For Meteors to be obvious, almost distracting, even when you aren’t really looking for them, you do need a very high rate. The rat of 45 which we will reach is certainly a good bit higher than the normal rate of just 10, but it’s still not quite enough to show a lot of meteors. My recommendation when it comes to looking for meteors is to get out to a dark countryside sky, and you don’t need a telescope. Focusing in on one small area of the sky will only hinder you if you’re looking for meteors. Instead try to lie back or recline so you can take in a broad view of the sky. Possibly most importantly, do something else as well. Listen to some music, maybe have a night time barbeque or a star party, something that keeps you outside and awake. This will help to make sure you’re out for long enough that there’ll be enough times when you’re be looking a the sky that you’ll get some chance of seeing something. Lastly, of course, you need good weather, if it’s cloudy it doesn’t even matter if you’re in the countryside, the clouds can block out everything. So. good weather, out in the countryside and plenty of time, it takes time to see these meteors, even if you’re at a much higher rate like the Perseids, but certainly if you’re getting a lower Zenith Hourly Rate like we will be getting a little bit later in July,

Despite the low rate we’ll be getting, I do hope that you get to see some meteors. If you don’t manage to see the meteors, don’t worry, we’ll have an even better meteor shower coming up just next month. I also hope that you’ll come back to check out this website when I give a view ahead to August, which I of course will when we get a little closer to it. Right at the end of the video, I did finally get to see a meteor at the 45 ZHR, which does give me a little bit of hope for the showers at the end of the month. If enjoyed this frank and honest look at the upcoming meteors showers, and if you did then I hope that you come back to check out my inevitable video on the Persieds. You can subscribe to this website and/or my YouTube channel to make sure. Best of look with the shooting stars and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.