Jul 29, 2015 3 min read

A full moon nearly washed out last year’s Perseid meteor shower, but that won’t be the case for this year’s annual celestial display, according to astronomers.

“There will be no moon in the sky during the peak of this year’s shower, so it’ll be a good, dark sky in that respect,” said Ken Kobus, associate director of Mingo Creek Park Observatory. The park organization is hosting a sky-watch party after dusk Aug. 12.

“If you can’t make it and you’re an early riser, look around 3 or 4 in the morning (Aug. 13) and you might have a chance to see it. That might actually be the best time. After 1 a.m., things start to really light up,” said associate observatory director Gene Kulakowski.

“But yeah, the big thing this year is it’s peaking before the new moon, which will really open up the sky for seeing the shower. All we have to hope for is good weather.”

The directors recommend bringing a lawn chair, a jacket or blanket, some bug spray and a caffeinated beverage to stay awake through the wee hours. Their instructions are otherwise simple and intuitive.

“Look up. Be there, and look up. The (meteor flashes) are very quick. You can’t be talking, or trying to direct others to see what you just saw, because it’ll be gone,” Kobus said. “We’ll have a telescope there if people really want to use it if it gets cloudy, but we’re not trying to encourage that, or for anyone else to bring one. You’re not going to catch many meteors’ trails in that lens.”

The trails, or “shooting stars,” are meteors or debris from the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which become visible as they enter the earth’s atmosphere and burn up, according to Kobus.

The annual meteor shower starts Aug. 11, peaking through the early morning hours of Aug. 13.

“It’s like a bell curve, the frequency at which you can spot them.

On the 12th, statistically speaking, you can observe up to 60 an hour. But with our weather systems and our typical conditions, I’m happy to see 60 in a night,” Kobus said, “and when you see the bigger pieces break apart, you’ll see some variations of colors and streaks. Those get some ‘oos’ and ‘ahhs’ from people.”

“If I see 30 in an hour, I feel great,” Kulakowski said, “but the biggest event we look for in these meteor showers are so-called fireballs, the ones that have a fiery, colorful trail that last for up to 5 seconds. Those are the show stoppers.”

The directors said in addition to the meteor shower, they will have regularly scheduled star gazing parties Friday and Saturday that week.