'Best meteor shower of the summer' set for Tuesday night, Astronomy Ireland says

Eva Osborne

Astronomy Ireland is alerting everyone in Ireland to the peak activity of the best meteor shower of the summer, 'The Perseids'.

Editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, David Moore, said spectators can expect to see "20 times more shooting stars tonight than a normal night".

"There will be a bright Moon in the sky and this will drown out some of the faint meteors, but the most spectacular brighter ones will still be well seen so we are urging people to get the whole family out and watch this 'celestial fireworks' display provided by Mother Nature."

Perseid meteors can appear anywhere in the sky but their paths point back to the constellation (star-pattern) Perseus, which is in the north-east as seen from Ireland each evening.

Spectators will need to wait until the sky is quite dark, and are urged to try and view as late as they can.

Some Perseid meteors can be extremely bright and leave glow trails behind them. 20 Perseids per hour should be visible even with the strong moonlight.

"It is best to stand with your back to the Moon and look half way up the sky" Moore said.

Rare double planet

In an unprecedented event, Moore said the planets Venus and Jupiter will be extremely close for those who stay up until 3am Wednesday morning.

Set your alarm for 4am for the best view.

"Venus is 100 times bright than the brightest star in the sky so it is extremely spectacular to the naked eye" Moore said.

"Furthermore, Jupiter is nearly as bright as Venus and will be extremely close as seen with the naked eye, just above Venus - I have never seen anything this spectacular involving bright planets in all my life.

"We really want everyone in Ireland to get up at 4am and see this extremely rare chance alignment - they will probably never seen anything like it again in their lifetime.

This apparent 'close approach' is just a chance alignment, Venus is actually five times closer to Earth than Jupiter is on Wednesday morning and they will be fairly close for several mornings after that if clouds spoil the view on Wednesday morning.