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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 12 2015, @02:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the oooh-aaah dept.

According to The Register, the BBC is pulling its annual trick of promising skygazers a "dazzling display" of Perseid meteors this week, as the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle.

Peak meteor activity will be tomorrow night (Wednesday August 12) from around 2300 UK time [2200 UTC], and enthusiasts can expect "at least one every few minutes". Alan MacRobert, senior ed at Sky & Telescope told Auntie: "The nearly moonless sky this year means the viewing will be excellent."

Back in 2009, Reg reader Bill Pinnell caught some open sky and got this nice snap of a small piece of Swift-Tuttle going out in a blaze of glory: [See the original article for the picture]

The Perseids are so named because they appear to originate from a "radiant" in the constellation Perseus. Whether Perseus itself will be visible tomorrow night depends of course on the weather gods, who frequently thwart mankind's dreams of endazzlement. ®


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:47PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:47PM (#221729) Homepage
    Yeah, we've just had 12 to-local-standards scorchers with clear skies. That stopped at tea-time today, with spitting rain that seems like it will never wind down. Not expecting any sky to be visible at all tonight.
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