The first time Bill Cooke ever saw a meteor shower, he was 11 years old in the woods of North Georgia getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes. But as he looked up, the sight of color streaks from the Perseid meteor shower made him forget his itchy red bumps — if only for a moment.
Now Cooke, 66, is the meteroid environment program manager at NASA in Huntsville, Ala., where he studies the skies for a living. And he said it is just as easy for him to witness the meteor shower at its mid-August zenith as it was 55 years ago — and for you too, if you follow a few simple rules.
The meteor shower is a debris train trailing the Swift-Tuttle comet, a dirty snowball that completes its orbit around the sun every 133 years. From mid-July to early September, the Earth’s orbital path around the sun crosses that of the comet. And those grain-sized debris become “falling stars” as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, burning up and producing spectacular streaks of light.
The fascination with the Perseids dates back centuries. Scribes in medieval Europe called the meteor shower “the tears of St. Lawrence” because the streaks in the sky fell on the anniversary of St. Lawrence’s martyrdom. A more recent example comes from the late singer and songwriter John Denver, whose hit “Rocky Mountain High” (“I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky”) was based on a camping trip he took to see the Perseids.
Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, said the Perseids’ appeal stems in part from the comet’s timelessness in contrast with the scale of human life. “It causes us to ponder the sky and the cosmos at large, and it gives us a much different sense of what’s important and how long things last,” he said.
Here are the steps experts suggest you take to fully appreciate the celestial light show.
Look on the right day and time. The frequency of the Perseids will ramp up between now until the peak of the meteor shower on the evenings of Aug. 10, 11 and 12.
The light show goes on for hours, and individuals should be prepared to stay up late. That’s because “you don’t want to look at the moon too much because that degrades your night vision,” said Tim Thompson, the science director at the Mt. Wilson Observatory.
Fortunately, the moon will set around midnight in Southern California, removing that lunar pollution for night owls.
Find a dark vantage point with a clear view of the sky. The most important thing that astronomers do to improve their night vision is to leave behind the light pollution of urban cities and head to remote locations that are also unencumbered by trees or buildings that block the view.
Cameron Hummels, a research scientist at Caltech and a former resident astronomer at Grand Canyon National Park, suggested that Angelenos book nearby campsites in advance to watch the Perseids. Joshua Tree is a popular choice, but there is also the Mojave Desert, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and even trailheads and campsites as close as the Angeles National Forest near Pasadena.
In the backcountry, Cooke said, individuals will be able to see a meteor streaking across the sky about once a minute. But in a suburb, that rate will drop to less than five per hour, he said, because the light pollution will render all but the brightest fireballs invisible.
The light show can continue for hours, and Cooke advised keeping your eyes off your phone if you want them to stay adjusted to the dark.
Don’t focus on Perseus. The Perseids appear to radiate out from the northern constellation Perseus — hence the name. People living in the northern hemisphere will be able to see the Perseids regardless of where they set up camp, barring any inclement weather. But individuals living deep in the southern hemisphere will have a harder time seeing the meteor shower, Krupp said.
But you don’t need to actually find the specific cluster of Perseus stars to get the best view of the meteor shower — in fact, Cooke advises against it. “Don’t work to look for the Perseus radiant because the meteors [at that point] have short trails and they’re visually unimpressive.”
You’ll catch a better view of the shower if you have an expansive view of the sky, he said, because the meteors can appear anywhere. “So get on a cot or on a sleeping bag and lie flat on your back and look straight up.”
Leave the binoculars at home. Unlike other astronomical events, it’s actually better to take in the Perseids without the use of visual aids because meteors move fast — 133,200 mph, to be precise. “A meteor can appear anywhere in the sky. Telescopes and binoculars, you [only] see a small part in the sky. So you don’t want to use them. You want to use your eyes,” Cooke said.
Out of all the annual meteor showers, “the Perseids produce more bright meteors, more fireballs, than any other shower” because of their speed and size, Cooke said. They also show up on balmy summer nights, as opposed to the Leonids and Geminids, which arrive in November and December, respectively.
Use a better camera than the one in your phone. If you’re eager to capture an image of a meteor shower, you’ll be better served by something other than your iPhone, said Bob Stephens, an amateur astronomer and globe-trotting “eclipse chaser” who’s been capturing meteor showers with his camera for 50 years.
It’s better to have a DSLR or a mirrorless camera so you can put on a wide-angle lens, Stephens said — “the wider the better, because you pick up more sky in the lens.” Pushing the aperture or the F-stop down as low as possible allows the most light in, and he suggests setting the ISO as high as possible without adding grain to the image.
The shutter speed should be slow, but at most 15 seconds, to capture the trail of light moving across the sky, and you’ll need a tripod to prevent blurriness. Most modern digital cameras have the capability built in to take photos every number of seconds until a memory card is full.
