You are outside, the night sky is clear, you look up and then WOOSH! You see a shooting star!

If you see a shooting star this week will probably be a Perseid from the Perseid meteor shower.

Like most things in astronomy, you don’t need expensive telescopes or equipment to enjoy the Perseids; you just need to be comfortable and patient. Please see here on how to enjoy observing meteors.

When you see a meteor, share your experience on twitter by tweeting what you saw for the meteor map.

The meteor map displays tweets of meteors seen by location and is very simple and fun to use.

Tweet the hashtag #meteorwatch then the first part of your postcode, then your country code and then optionally how many meteors you saw. Your results will then be displayed on the map shortly afterwards. Instructions can be found at the bottom of the map page.

Let’s see how many people saw a meteor or more?