The Perseids peak tonight and Tuesday. Here's your guide to viewing this spectacular meteor shower.
With cloud cover not a factor, what else can impact your viewing? Well, this year you'll have to contend with the moonlight, as well as light and air pollution. The moon was full a couple of days ago, and that full sturgeon moon is now waning, but after the moon rises around 9 p.m., it will be present in the sky the rest of the night. This means the moonlight itself can outshine some of those meteors.
Also, light pollution from cities and towns can impact your viewing. It's tough to get away from the moonlight, but if you can find yourself in a spot where a building can block it, like a barn or something in the suburbs, you'll probably see a few more meteors. In terms of the city lights, you'll have to remove yourself from the brightest population centers to get a better view of the meteor shower.
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In terms of air pollution, we have air quality alerts for Monday, and the air itself is fairly hazy. This will limit those meteor showers that are not as brilliant from being seen, since their light has to pass through the dirty atmosphere. If this were winter, the chances of pollution would be much smaller. That's why the Geminid meteor shower in December is one of my favorites. But at that time of the year, it's the clouds that we might have to contend with.
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A layer of haze may dull out some of the meteors late Monday and Tuesday night despite mostly clear skies.
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When is the best viewing time?
You can catch the meteor shower anytime it's dark, but experts say the best time to view them is from midnight to sunrise. However, sometimes the meteors that we see in the early evening tend to be low Earth-grazers and may appear to have much longer trajectories. The most active time for the Perseids, which can feature 80 to 100 meteors shooting across the sky each hour, is typically in the few hours before dawn, so if you're an early riser, that's the best window.
And keep in mind, you don't need special equipment to see them. Just find a dark spot, let your eyes adjust, and look up. A blanket or comfortable chair makes it easier so your neck doesn't become stiff while viewing.
Nothing is perfect, but this year the Perseids will streak across the sky, and the clouds won't be there. Enjoy!
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Tom's Guide
8 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Perseids meteor shower peaks tonight — here's how to spot hundreds of shooting stars
The Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight, offering one of the year's best opportunities to see shooting stars streak across the sky. While this annual celestial display usually produces up to 75 meteors per hour, moonlight will reduce visibility this year, making only the brightest meteors visible to the naked eye. Even with the reduced count, it's still worth looking up — the Perseids are known for their long, glowing trails, occasional bursts of color, and moments when multiple meteors appear within seconds of each other. Here's how to make the most of tonight's meteor shower and why a smart telescope might be your best viewing companion. See farther into the universe with the Seestar S50 smart telescope. You don't need to be an astrophotography pro because you can control the telescope with your smartphone and easily capture stars, nebulas, and galaxies with ease. When Earth drifts through a trail of dust and debris left by a comet or, on rare occasions, an asteroid, the particles slam into our atmosphere and burn up in quick, brilliant streaks. That's the simple science behind a meteor shower. The Perseids make their appearance every August, thanks to Earth's predictable path through the same debris stream. They're one of the most dependable showers of the year, often producing dozens of meteors an hour. This time around, your best bet is to watch after midnight and into the early morning, with peak activity between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. local time through August 13. Spend at least 20–30 minutes in the dark to let your eyes adjust, and you'll have the best chance of spotting the brightest showers. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Light pollution is your biggest enemy. If possible, get away from city or suburban glow. Even a 20-minute drive can dramatically improve your view. Once you're there, avoid looking at your phone screen or using bright flashlights. The meteors will appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus in the northeast, but they can streak across any part of the sky. Keep a wide field of view, and don't fix your gaze too tightly on one spot — you'll see more shooting stars that way. Give yourself 20–30 minutes in the dark before expecting to see the fainter meteors. As your night vision kicks in, the sky will reveal more detail from subtle meteor streaks to star clusters you might not spot at first. Bright moonlight can wash out all but the most vivid meteors, leaving your eyes to miss many of the faint streaks. A smart telescope's sensor sidesteps that problem, picking up trails you'd never spot unaided, along with the star fields and constellations that frame the show. Unlike traditional telescopes, which demand star charts, manual tracking, and precise focusing, smart telescopes do the hard work for you. Control everything from your phone, tap to track a target, and let the telescope handle the rest. Even the best phone cameras like Apple's iPhone 16 Pro, Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Pixel 9 Pro are limited to stars and moon shots. Smart telescopes can capture deep-space objects and subtle details that a phone simply can't detect. John Velasco, Tom's Guide's Senior Phones Editor and an avid astrophotographer, has put smart telescopes through their paces on plenty of celestial events — meteor showers included. 'I love using the SeeStar S30 and S50 smart telescopes for all sorts of astrophotography,' he says. 'While they're designed to image deep space objects like galaxies, nebulas, and star clusters, I've used them to capture meteor showers as well.' Between the two, John recommends the S30 for meteor showers thanks to its wider field of view. 'The S50's longer telephoto zoom is great for detail, but it has a narrower field of view. The S30 sees more of the sky, which makes it more ideal for catching meteors.' His go-to method is to switch the telescope into timelapse mode. 'That way, it'll keep taking images automatically and you won't miss a meteor that flashes across the sky in the blink of an eye,' John explains. 'I usually just point to one section of the sky and let timelapse mode do its thing.' Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Perseid meteor shower is peaking Tuesday. Here's how to see it
It's finally time to watch one of the best meteor showers of the year: the brilliant display known as the Perseids. The Perseid meteor shower, which is known for producing dozens of bright meteors that leave long streaks in their wake, peaked at 4 p.m. ET Tuesday. In previous years, it produced around 40 to 50 visible meteors per hour, but sky-gazers likely won't see as many this year, said Bill Cooke, the lead for NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office. This is due to the fact that the Perseid shower is occurring shortly after August's full moon. The moon will be in a waning gibbous phase and at around 85% illumination, which means the light from the moon will make meteor-spotting more difficult. According to experts, you may see around 10 to 20 meteors per hour. When to watch for meteors While the peak of the Perseids happened well before sunset in the US, there are two windows of time between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning during which stargazers should aim to be outside for the best chance of glimpsing a meteor. 'Between dusk and moonrise on the evening of August 12, there's going to be a one-hour gap before the moon rises,' when you can look for Perseid activity, said Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society. These meteors shoot out in all directions from the constellation Perseus, which is located in the northern sky. Lunsford noted, however, that, due to Perseus appearing low on the horizon at this time, much of the meteor activity will be blocked from view. 'Any meteors you do see at that time are going to be called Earth grazers because they can just graze the upper atmosphere,' he said. While most Perseid meteors are visible for mere milliseconds, the few earth grazers you might spot 'will be very long and will last two or three seconds,' he added. The last couple of hours before daybreak on Wednesday is the other window during which Lunsford recommends trying to see the shower. 'There'll be a bright moon up in the southern sky, but if you turn your gaze northward and look kind of toward the constellation Perseus, you can still see the brighter meteors.' Look up for planets The peak of the Perseids is occurring just after the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, and the two planets will still be close together and shining brightly. The best views will be in the eastern sky before sunrise. 'These are the two brightest planets,' Lunsford said. 'This (conjunction) happens about once a year, but it's still spectacular when you get the two brightest planets really close to each other.' Saturn will also be joining the night's celestial display in the late evening hours on Tuesday. It will appear near the moon and will rise before midnight, according to EarthSky. Upcoming meteor showers Here are the peak dates of other meteor showers anticipated in 2025, according to the American Meteor Society and EarthSky. Draconids: October 8-9 Orionids: October 22-23 Southern Taurids: November 3-4 Northern Taurids: November 8-9 Leonids: November 16-17 Geminids: December 13-14 Ursids: December 21-22 Upcoming full moons Look out for four more full moons this year, with supermoons occurring in October, November and December. Their dates are: September 7 October 6 November 5 December 4 Lunar and solar eclipses in 2025 Two eclipse events will take place as summer draws to a close. A total lunar eclipse will be visible in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, parts of eastern South America, Alaska and Antarctica on September 7 and 8, according to Time and Date. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly into Earth's shadow as the sun, Earth and the moon line up. This causes the moon to appear darker or dimmed. When the moon sits in the darkest part of Earth's shadow, the sun's rays peek out from behind Earth and the light refracts, giving the moon a reddish hue, according to London's Natural History Museum. Some people call the result a 'blood moon.' Two weeks later, on September 21, a partial solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Australia, the Atlantic, the Pacific and Antarctica. Solar eclipses occur when the moon moves between the sun and Earth. In the case of a partial solar eclipse, the moon does not fully block out the sun. It creates a crescent — as if the moon took a bite out of the sun. Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Solve the daily Crossword
CNET
16 hours ago
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Get Prepared to See Six Planets Line Up in the Upcoming Planet Parade
Fresh off the excitement of the Perseids meteor shower is a chance to see six planets lined up in the sky at once. These events, colloquially known as planet parades, only occur about once or twice a year, with the most recent one in February showing off all seven planets in our solar system at once. The next one will feature six of our closest celestial neighbors, and the event starts on Aug. 20. The six planets sharing the sky will be Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. Mars will technically be there at the beginning of the night, but it dips below the horizon right after sunset, so it won't be visible when all of the others are. Of those, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will be visible to the naked eye, while the others will require high-powered binoculars or, preferably, a telescope. Even though they're spread out across the eastern and southern skies, the planets pair up with this one, making many of them pretty easy to find if you know what to look for. From east to west, here's where each one will be. Mercury - Eastern sky near the Cancer constellation. It'll pop over the horizon just before sunrise, so you'll have limited time to view it before the sun comes up and obfuscates it. - Eastern sky near the Cancer constellation. It'll pop over the horizon just before sunrise, so you'll have limited time to view it before the sun comes up and obfuscates it. Venus - At the lower tip of the Gemini constellation in the eastern sky, a couple of hours before sunrise. - At the lower tip of the Gemini constellation in the eastern sky, a couple of hours before sunrise. Jupiter - Will be near Venus, also in the Gemini constellation. It rises about an hour before Venus does. - Will be near Venus, also in the Gemini constellation. It rises about an hour before Venus does. Uranus - Will be near the upper tip of Taurus, rising after midnight. This one will require some magnification. If you see Pleiades, a cluster of stars at the upper tip of Taurus, you've gone too far upward. - Will be near the upper tip of Taurus, rising after midnight. This one will require some magnification. If you see Pleiades, a cluster of stars at the upper tip of Taurus, you've gone too far upward. Saturn and Neptune - These two are right next to each other and will be sitting between the Pisces and Cetus constellations in the southern skies. Neptune will be closer to Pisces while Saturn will be closer to Cetus. Since it takes a long time for planets to move through the night sky, Aug. 20 is the starting point, and it'll run through the rest of the month. Once September hits, Mercury will be too close to the sun, which will obscure it. From that point, there will be a five-planet parade for a while until Venus sinks below the horizon in early October. So, in all, you'll have a chance to see at least five planets for over a month. Will the planet parade be visible from my region? Yes. We double checked Stellarium's sky map from a variety of locations across the country, and everything above will be applicable everywhere in the continental US. Per Starwalk, the parade will also be visible in other parts of the world after the following dates for about the same amount of time (one to two weeks). Abu Dhabi - Aug. 9 - Aug. 9 Athens, Beijing, Berlin, Tokyo and London - Aug. 10 - Aug. 10 Mumbai and Hong Kong - Aug. 11 - Aug. 11 Reykjavik, São Paulo and Sydney - Aug. 12 The planets will move based on date, though. The above locations are where they'll be around Aug. 20, but if you're looking a week or so later, they'll be in the same general area, but will shift to a slightly different part of the sky. Will I need any special equipment? Yes. Neptune and Uranus, especially, will require some sort of magnification to see. We recommend a telescope, but high-powered binoculars may work if the sky is dark enough. Saturn is also difficult to see without magnification, so you'll want it for that too. Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury should be visible on their own with the naked eye. We also recommend taking a trip out to the country, as light pollution from suburbs and cities can make it even more difficult to see Neptune and Uranus. The moon will be out as well, which may make Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury harder to see. Other factors like weather may also make it more difficult to see all of them. If you're lucky, you may see a few shooting stars at the tail end of Perseids as well.
