Meteors - 23:00 to 1:00 bst - 12 -13 August 2025

 

Meteors captured over 2 hours, seen against the majesty
of the Milky Way running through Cygnus.
Taken with the Canon 600d DSLR
with a Sigma wide angle lens at f =15mm.
all mounted on Star Adventurer EQ mount.
Credit: Kurt Thrust

"The Perseid meteor shower was expected to peak on the 12th of August, so the JPO team were out meteor watching for about 2 hours. In that time we spotted about 10 meteors. The Moon was just past full and made meteor observation, photography and post capture image processing difficult. Kurt set up the Observatory mini-rig with our old Canon DSLR and we all hoped for the best. The above compilation image was processed by Kurt and shows six  meteors of which two are possibly Geminids and the rest either Delta Aquarids or sporadic meteors. The two very bright stars are Deneb and Vega.".  - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"On warm August nights, the Perseid meteor shower fills the sky with swift, bright streaks of light, each one seeming to spill from the constellation Perseus. These meteors are tiny fragments shed long ago by the comet Swift–Tuttle, which swings around the Sun every century and a bit, leaving a dusty trail in its wake. As Earth plows through this trail, the particles strike our atmosphere at nearly 59 kilometers per second, burning up in a brief, brilliant flash. Many leave behind glowing trails that linger for a moment before fading. Around the 12th and 13th of August, the display is at its best, sometimes producing more than a hundred meteors an hour under dark skies.

By late July, another, quieter shower has already been at work: the Delta Aquarids. These meteors seem to fan out from the “water jar” of Aquarius and are gentler, slower streaks than the Perseids. They most likely come from the remains of Comet Machholz, though astronomers are not entirely certain. Drifting into the atmosphere at about 41 kilometers per second, they tend to be fainter, with a steadier, more ghostlike appearance. Their peak comes around the 28th to 30th of July, when in the right location, perhaps twenty meteors an hour might be seen. They may be seen until about the 15th of August and there is an overlap with the Perseid shower.

Even when no shower is active, the sky offers its own small surprises. On any given night, a patient watcher might see a handful of sporadic meteors — lone flashes from random directions. These are the wandering dust and pebbles of the Solar System, leftovers from shattered comets, broken asteroids, and drifting interplanetary debris. Some arrive lazily, skimming the atmosphere at just over 11 kilometers per second, while others come screaming in at more than 70. They are unpredictable, unscripted visitors, making each one feel like a small gift from space". - Karl Segin outreach officer at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.