Have you ever seen a shooting star? It’s quite a spectacle, seeing a little piece of dust or rock burning a line across the night sky. If you’d like to see shooting stars (or perhaps even a much more impressive fireball!) without waiting for hours and hours, what you need is a meteor shower.
While you’re at it, why not take an amazing photo? With NightCap Pro you can photograph a meteor shower using your iPhone!
Meteor showers happen when a comet (or sometimes an asteroid) crosses the earth’s orbit around the sun. They leave behind a trail of dust and small bits of ice and rock, and each time the earth passes through this trail lots of these bits burn up in our atmosphere. Each time it happens, we see a shooting star.
There are many meteor showers throughout the year. There’s an excellent guide to viewing meteor showers including a good timetable at Meteorwatch.
When you’ve done so, we’re ready for the first challenge, stars! (more…)
Your guide to constellations, deep-sky objects, planets and events, Tonight’s Sky, Highlights of the December Sky (more…)
