Watch The Perseid Meteor Shower This Week

Every year between July and August, you can watch the Perseids meteor shower in the night sky. This year it’s supposed to peak on the night of August 13, so any night this week you should be able to see a good amount of meteors streaking across the sky. And, the Perseids is especially great this year because it occurs during a new moon, so the meteors won’t have to battle the brightness of the moon in the sky — allowing you to see MUCH more! 🙂

To increase your chances of seeing some meteors, it’s also good to get away from the light pollution of cities. You want the sky as clear and as dark as possible.

If you’d like to try and photograph some meteors traveling across the night sky, then check out these great articles:

• Meteor Showers: A Photographer’s Primer – (Luminous Landscape)
• Photographing Meteors – (Astropix)

If you have a great tip for photographing or observing meteor showers, please share it with us by leaving a comment below. Good luck, hope you see some incredible meteors! 🙂

Want to receive reminders of more astronomical events like meteor showers and lunar eclipses? Then sign up for our free weekly newsletter.

P.S. Check out some new night photography features of The Photographer’s Ephemeris

I’ve mentioned The Photographer’s Ephemeris on numerous occasions. It’s a “must have” app for any landscape photographer. Well, the creator recently told me about a few new features that make this app even more useful (especially for night photography):

• Night mode — great for planning shots of the Milky Way!
• Event lists — showing you dates of meteor showers and eclipses!

So, if you haven’t updated TPE in awhile, I recommend doing so to take advantage of some cool new features.

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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, software engineer, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the beautiful mountains and deserts of southern California.