If you look up at the sky for a while during the summer, you’ll probably see a few “shooting stars” streaking across the sky.
The best meteor show of the summer occurs in the second week of August during the annual Perseid meteor shower, which, peaking around the nights of August 11th and 12th, is capable of producing 50 to 100 fast, bright meteors per hour for a single observer. Many flaring meteors with trains are seen under clear skies. 2024 will be a very good year to view the Perseids, as the bright moonlight will not interfere.
The very first precursors to the Perseid shower began to appear around July 25. You’ll see a few per hour at most, but the numbers start to increase in the second week of August. The last Perseid stragglers can be seen until August 18.
In general, the Earth experiences richer meteor activity in the second half of the year. And you are likely to see twice as many meteors per hour in the hours before sunrise compared to the evening hours. This is because we are on the “lagging” side of the Earth during the hours before midnight, due to our orbital motion through space.
Thus, any meteorite particle must generally have an orbital velocity greater than that of the Earth in order to “catch” us. However, after midnight, when we are spun toward the “leading” side of the Earth, any particle lying along the planet’s orbital path will enter the Earth’s atmosphere as a meteor. Because such objects collide with our atmosphere at speeds of 7 to 45 miles (11 to 72 km) per second, their kinetic energy is quickly dissipated in the form of heat, light, and ionization, creating short-lived streaks of light popularly called “shooting stars.”
Want more advice on photographing meteor showers in the summer? Check out our guide to photographing meteors and meteor showers . And if you need meteor photography gear, check out our pages on the best cameras for astrophotography and the best lenses for astrophotography .
Meteor supernumeraries
In addition to the Perseids, there are many other minor meteor shows that are active at various times during July and August. Although the hourly frequency of these other meteor streams is only a fraction of the numbers produced by the Perseids, together they produce a wide variety of meteors of various colors, speeds, and trajectories. Summer meteors, which occasionally flash across your field of view, are most noticeable between late July and the third week of August.
And between July 26 and August 21, there are no fewer than six different small displays active. These include the Capricornids, Delta Aquarids, Piscis Australids, Alpha Capricornids, Iota Aquarids, and Kappa Cygnids.
The radiant points for five of these meteor showers peak about halfway up in the southern part of the sky between 1:00 and 3:30 a.m. local daylight saving time. A radiant is the spot in the sky where the meteor shower paths, when extended backward, intersect near the star or constellation for which the meteor showers are named. Many people mistakenly believe that this is the best place to look for these meteors, but in fact the greatest numbers are seen in the area of the sky above them and toward the south.
In addition to meteor showers, there are always sporadic meteors, seemingly unrelated, occurring at an average rate of about seven per hour. The duration in days of a shower is somewhat arbitrary, since the beginning and end are gradual and indefinite.
The only equipment you need is your eyes and a little patience.
As a seasoned meteor enthusiast once said, “Observing meteors is relaxing and fun, potentially dramatic, and just plain fun!”
The small shower list
This first meteor shower is the Capricornids shower, which peaks on July 26, but lasts from July 10 to August 15. The radiant reaches its highest point in the south at about 01:45 CET. There will be at most a few bright Capricornids per hour, but this year these meteors will be obstructed by a bright, gibbous moon shining brightly in the east-southeast sky.
There are only two more days before the Piscis Australids peak on July 28 (July 15-Aug. 30). The radiant crosses the meridian at 3:30 a.m. This is a smaller stream; only about eight members per hour will be visible to observers, mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, where the radiant climbs high in the sky. However, the light of a nearby Last Quarter Moon will obscure visibility.
Also on July 28 is the peak of the Delta Aquariids (July 12 – August 23). This shower has two radiants, indicating that we are seeing two separate streams of celestial debris producing faint, medium-velocity meteors that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. As many as two or three dozen meteors per hour are produced by this shower, and the radiants reach their highest peak in the south around 3 a.m. However, the same Last Quarter Moon that will disrupt the Piscis Australids will also likely reduce the number of Delta Aquariids that can be seen.
Another weak shower is the Alpha Capricornids, which begin around July 3, peak on July 31, and end on August 15. The radiant is highest in the south around 1:00 a.m. CET. Although few in number, the Alpha Capricornids often produce slow, bright — sometimes fireball-like — elongated yellow meteors that can be quite spectacular. Good news: the Moon has now waned to a thin crescent and will provide little to no clues when looking for these meteors.
The last small shower before the Perseids is the Iota Aquarids, another two-rayed shower, with numbers visible from July 15 to August 25. Peak activity occurs on August 6, with only six members visible per hour under good conditions; the rays reach their highest point in the south at 02:45.
After the Perseids, the last summer shower is the Kappa Cygnid. The limits of this shower are August 3-28, with the peak on August 17. Although the maximum rate is only three per hour, the stream is classified as “slow-moving and sometimes brilliant with flaring fireballs”, and the careful observer can be handsomely rewarded for the time spent. The hours before midnight are the hours to choose for this shower. The radiant is just north of the star Kappa Cygni and passes almost overhead at 10:30 p.m. Unfortunately, a nearly full moon will light up the sky most of the night.
One month of summer meteors
We include here radiant charts, courtesy of Yoshihiko Shigeno of the Nippon Meteor Society (NMS), plotted to make the distribution of visual meteor radiants easier to understand. Each chart is divided into ten-day intervals — late July, early August, and mid-August — and each detected meteor radiant position is marked with a small “x.”
Note that in late July the most active regions are in Capricornus, Aquarius and Perseus. By mid-August meteor radiants have become widespread across Aquarius, while the Perseid radiant has become most prominent.
SPACE.com will publish a comprehensive viewer’s guide to the upcoming Perseid shower in the August 9 night sky. Stay tuned!