Keep an eye on the night sky over Peoria this weekend, you may just catch a glimpse of the Perseid Meteor Shower.
Peoria Astronomical Society President Dan Son said the meteor shower formed when the comet Swift-Tuttle passed by Earth in 1992. The debris field left behind by the comet remains in the same spot on Earth’s orbit around the sun, so it becomes visible in the night sky around mid-August every year.
“You're gonna see striking light, it will be really fast going across the sky,” Son said. “And you'll know when you see it, it's like nothing else, it happens so quickly.”
Son said some of the lights can be really bright, while others can even flare and explode as they go through the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.
The Preseid gets its name from the constellation Perseus, which it appears to point back towards. Son said this naming convention applies to other meteor showers, too. For example, the Leonids, visible in mid-November, point back towards Leo.
Peak visibility for Perseid will be late Saturday night into early Sunday morning.
For viewing the shower, you’ll need nothing but your eyes.
“Dark sky is better. And when I say dark sky, I mean, Fulton County dark sky,” Son said. “Somewhere where there's no city around. And that's when you're going to see a lot more.”
Son said the ambient light pollution from cities like Peoria and East Peoria make it more difficult to see the shower clearly. So he recommends heading out into rural areas for the best viewing experience.
You can also see the meteor shower through the Astronomical Society’s telescope at Northmoor Observatory at Donovan Park. The telescope is open to the public for viewing starting at 7:30 p.m.
