Petrified Forest National Park offers an opportunity to view the Perseid Meteor Shower on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 11. From 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., the Painted Desert Visitor Center parking lot will be open for ob-servation. The park telescope will be used to view Mars, Saturn and celestial objects such as the globular clus-ter in Hercules, M-13, while the skies will provide a background for the Perseid Meteor Shower. Everyone is welcome, and should bring a lawn chair or blanket (and maybe snacks) for watching the sky.
The Perseid Meteor Shower is named after the constellation Perseus, where the radiant or center of the area from which the meteors come lies. The meteors are particles from the Comet Swift-Tuttle that last passed through this section of the solar system in 1862. Comets are made of ice and particles of rock. As a comet gets close to the sun, the heat melts the ice, and throws off particles and dust. Every year as the earth goes through this band of comet debris the small particles hit the earth’s atmosphere and burn up, producing meteors or “shooting stars.”
The waning crescent moon, which rises at 1 a.m., should not be a big problem for light pollution this year. Predictions are as many as 60 to 80 meteors per hour may be seen. More meteors are typically seen after mid-night when our side of the earth is facing outer space. It looks like a good year to check on the Perseids.
Aug 102012
