Video courtesy of Slooh. Visit Slooh.com to snap and share your own photos of this live event, and interact with our hosts and guests, and personally control Slooh’s telescopes.
The Slooh online observatory streams live views of the Perseid meteor shower on Wednesday evening (August 12) beginning at 7 a.m. EDT (2300 GMT).
Hosted by Slooh astronomer Paul Cox, the show will feature live views of the annual “shooting star” display at its peak as experts discuss the astronomical event. You can watch it live in the window above, thanks to Slooh, or directly through Slooh’s YouTube channel.
Slooh’s next mission is to livestream a free public Star Party with the spectacular Perseids Meteor Shower. Slooh will have live meteor streams using special low-light video cameras from the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics, the Sharjah Academy of Astronomy, Space Sciences and Technology, and several other locations.
The Star Party is starting up Wednesday 12 August, starting at 19:00 EDT (23: 00UTC). The general public can watch live on Slooh’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels. Slooh members can personally participate in the Star Party on Slooh.com with Zoom to interact with Slooh experts.
Slooh astronomer, Paul Cox, said: “The Perseids are usually the most popular meteor shower of the year. Slooh members gather from all over the world to watch the live feeds in awe and marvel as fragments of comet 109P / Swift-Tuttle spectacularly evaporate as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere on their journey to a surprising 133,200 mph (60 km per second)!”
About the Perseids Meteor shower
The Perseids Meteor shower is not the most productive of the year, but it is one of the most popular and reliable. Warm August nights make meteor viewing for Perseids a summer holiday. Meteor guards can expect rates up to 50-75 meteors per hour under ideal conditions.
Every Meteid meteor we see is a small particle emitted by a comet named 109P / Swift-Tuttle. The comet returns to the inner solar system every 133 years, and it is an absolute litterbug – leaving a trail of pun. As the Earth passes through this orbit, some of the particles (meteoroids) enter the Earth’s atmosphere and evaporate in a breathtaking view often called a “shooting star”.
Meteor showers are best seen with the naked eye – you need to see as much of the sky as possible. But Slooh uses special low-light video cameras to capture this bright sky.
The comet particles, called meteoroids, are relatively small, given the view they emit as they evaporate – most are the size of a grain of sand, although a few are pea-sized. The waste field is sparse – very muscular. The meteoroids, drifting through space and slowly spreading, are about 60-100 miles apart.
The shower is named after the constellation of Perseus, which is ‘the jet’ of the shower. All of Perseid’s meteors will appear to travel from the radiant, although they may appear anywhere in the air.
Meteor guards have on many occasions been threatened by bright moonlight, and this year the 37% Waning Crescent Moon will interfere a bit in the pre-dawn hours. However, we still have to witness a fine display with Slooh’s specialist ultra-sensitive video cameras.
Event Timing for Wednesday 12 August 2020:
Live Stream Commissions: 7 PM EDT ¦ 23: 00UTC
Live stream ends: 11 PM EDT ¦ 03: 00UTC
TO SEE DE Slooh’s live coverage:
https://www.slooh.com/shows/video-viewer/673
SHARE the Facebook Live event from Slooh’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/SloohLive/
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