Pull up a seat, enjoy meteor shower – if you’re awake
No offense, but you could use a shower.
Lucky for you, the annual Perseid meteor shower starts late tonight and is expected to peak "in the wee hours" of Sunday morning, according to Jim Gianoulakis, president of the Las Vegas Astronomical Society.
Those who stay up late enough and find a dark enough place to watch should get to see roughly 60 shooting stars an hour as the Earth passes through a loose cloud of dust left behind by a comet.
The shooting stars are caused when dust and pea-sized rocks collide with the atmosphere at more than 100,000 mph.
The annual event gets its name because the meteor shower looks like it is emanating from the constellation Perseus, but that's just a coincidence, Gianoulakis said.
Just don't expect to see much from your backyard. To best view the phenomenon, he said you need to get out of the Las Vegas Valley and away from its light dome, preferably somewhere to the north that doesn't have a mountain range directly to the east. That is because Perseus will still be near the horizon to the northeast at midnight and will climb slowly into the sky from there.
The astronomical society has no official event planned for the meteor shower, but Gianoulakis thinks he has staked out a pretty good spot to take in the show, which should last several hours.
"I'll be heading to Valley of Fire and throwing down a chair and enjoying myself," he said.
Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.
