Perseid meteor shower
The sky on the Perseids' peak night from 45° north, at the hour their radiant in Perseus, near the Double Cluster stands highest, the view turned to it and ringed. Perseids can flash anywhere across that sky; traced backward, every one of them points to the ring.
Under this, worked out as the page is served: the Perseids' coming peak night and how much of the Moon is lit then, whether they're active now, the hour their radiant is highest, and their peaks in the years after. At best they give about 100 an hour; their source is Comet Swift–Tuttle (109P).
Perseids 2027
- Peakthe night of 12–13 Aug 2027, at up to 100 meteors an hour under a dark sky with the radiant overhead
- Moon84% lit at the peak (waxing gibbous): a bright Moon that will hide all but the brightest meteors
- Nownot active yet: it starts around 17 Jul
- Radianthighest around 6 AM by the Sun’s clock, at or after dawn, so the best hours are the last before it gets light; 77° up at most from 45° north
- Next years12 Aug 2028 (Moon 63% lit), 12 Aug 2029 (Moon 8% lit)
Peaks from the Sun’s position at each (the International Meteor Organization’s calendar), worked out with astronomy-engine as this page was served.
How to read it
The Perseids come from Comet Swift–Tuttle, whose nucleus is about 26 km across, large for a comet; it goes round the Sun every 133 years and last passed in 1992. The Earth runs through its stream every August, and the grains hit the air at 59 km a second, giving quick, bright meteors and more fireballs than most showers.
At its best the shower gives around 100 an hour under a dark sky, on warm summer nights for the northern hemisphere, which is why it is the year’s most-watched. The radiant, in Perseus near the Double Cluster, is low in the northeast in the evening and climbs all night; rates rise with it toward dawn. It is active from mid-July, a few an hour long before the peak.
Questions
What are the Tears of Saint Lawrence?
An old name for the Perseids in Catholic Europe: the feast of Saint Lawrence, a deacon martyred in Rome in 258, falls on the 10th of August, when the shower is building toward its peak, and the meteors were said to be his tears.
What time is best for the Perseids?
From about midnight until dawn starts on the peak night, when Perseus is high; the page’s clock goes to the hour it stands highest. The evening can bring the occasional long earthgrazer skimming from the northeast, worth watching for while the radiant is still low.
Can you see the Perseids from the southern hemisphere?
Only from the tropics and a little beyond: the radiant is 58° north, so it never rises south of about 32° south, and from Australia or southern Africa only a handful of Perseids show. They are a northern shower.
Sources
The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=0&imerg=0&sats=off&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0&view=sky&lat=45&shower=perseids
Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.
view | fixed · sunrel · orbit · moon · track |
track | what to follow: iss, tiangong, satgus (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), launch, sunrise, moonrise |
lat, lon | viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel) |
period, inc | orbit period (hours) and inclination (°) |
dist | viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic |
mag, rot | size and rotation (°) |
wait | seconds between redraws (default 60) |
time, speed | ISO start time; clock multiplier |
clouds, lights, grid, markers, label | 0 or 1 |
borders | Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key B) |
terminator | The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key Z) |
stars | 1, 0, or photo (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth) |
sats | all (Starlink + named), featured, or 0 |
aurora, storms, fires, quakes | 0 hides that layer (keys A H F E) |
buoys, buoy | Buoys on the globe, off by default (key Shift+B); buoy=46026 opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it. |
meteors | The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key Shift+M) |
iono | Ionosphere wash: tec electron content (GloTEC), drap HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or 0 (key Shift+I) |
lightning, events, snow | lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys L D I) |
sst | Sea temperature: temp, anomaly (El Niño, marine heatwaves; 1 means this), or 0 (key O) |
lst | Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): auto the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (1 means this), day, night, or 0 (key Shift+K) |
soil | Soil moisture (SMAP L4): surface the top 5 cm (1 means this), root the root zone to 1 m, or 0 (key Shift+W) |
chl | Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: 1 or 0 (key Shift+O; off by default) |
aerosol | Aerosols: aod VIIRS optical depth (1 means this), index the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or 0 (key Shift+Y; off by default) |
waves, wavesrc | Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: 1 or 0 (off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
currents, currentsrc | Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: 1 or 0 (off by default; key Q cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its latest.json |
coral, coralsrc | Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: 1 or 0 (key Shift+R; off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
ash | volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key Shift+A; off by default) |
radar, smoke, tsunami | RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys R Y Shift+T) |
imagery | live GOES and MTG pictures by day, daily yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, painted neither; with live or daily, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key Shift+P; the older truecolor=0/1 still works) |
severe | Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key X) |
imerg | With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (R’s middle step turns it off) |
relief | terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key Shift+E); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief |
reliefscale | terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1) |
isslive | NASA ISS telemetry panel: track (while tracking the ISS), 1 (always) or 0 (key Shift+L) |
isscam | 1 opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°) |
firehours | show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12) |
launches | 0 hides launch mode (key U) |
bodies, bodyscale | Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size) |
fps | 1 shows the frame-rate display (key ~) |
feeds | 1 shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key Shift+U) |
cloudsrc, satsrc | folders holding each latest.json |
