Where can I see shooting stars in the northeast region?

This weekend, western sky

We are expecting a meteor shower

@DrBill So uhh, where do I go to see them? What time does it start?

this page link has calendars for the expected meteor showers for each month this year, including dates and the peak times.

Besides the obvious stuff, like get away from any city lights, and watch after midnight, you want the phase of the moon to be new or in first quarter because it is not in the sky between midnight and sunrise. You don’t want the moon in the sky making glare when you are trying to watch a subtle show.

Forgot to point out a common mistake people make, going to watch on the wrong day.

For example, the Orionids are the next major meteor shower. They peak on October 21. This means you go out the night of Oct 20, because you will be watching after midnight, when it is technically the 21st.

@Deepness: You probably saw the last straggler of the Perseid meteor shower, at its peak on Aug. 12 (after midnight on Aug. 11, as PerryDolla pointed out.)

The radiant of the Perseids was high in the eastern sky several days ago. If something was/is going on in the west, I missed it.

More info here; http://www.fluther.com/disc/52769/will-the-perseids-meteor-shower-be-viewable-through-the-weekend/

@Deepness: Look for Jupiter in the night sky…brighter than the bright stars and clearly visibly high in the SE at 11:00 PM EDT. If you are a night owl, you can see it due S at midnight and setting in the SW in early AM.

@gailcalled Was that visible two nights ago? I was out about 9 p.m., looking towards the eastern sky and saw something that was bigger and brighter than the other stars. Much bigger.

@chyna: That was, indeed. Jupiter. It will be visible coincidently all night long tonight. We have spotty cloud cover here now and I can see Jupiter intermittently up there.

@gailcalled Spotty here also. I’ve just been outside on my deck trying to see it again.

Try northeastern Montana.

@kalafatic: Hold on a minute while I have the pilot gas up my private SST.

I can see Jupiter thru the cloud cover right now if I use peripheral vision.

@gailcalled Was Jupiter visible on Aug 13? There was a huge bright light in the SW sky at around 2AM when I went to the beach in toronto to see the perseides (thanks to pete’s Q!). I have the sand flea bites to prove it.

@andrew Pictures please, to prove sand flea bites.

@andrew: Yes. Right time, right place, right amount of brightness. You all should be able to see Jupiter nightly for a while. (Did you see any Perseids? And why didn’t you follow my instructions to bring bug repellent?)

Jupiter is magnitude -2.9 now, which is about 16 times brighter than the brightest summer stars. Using a logarithmic scale, 0 magnitude is 100 times brighter than 6th magnitude.

Brightest star is Sirius (a winter star) at -1.42 mag.

The brightest and most obvious configuration of summer is the right triangle of three bright stars; the brightest, Vega, is 0 mag.

Here’s a star map of the summer triangle. It’s a lot easier to see with the naked eye than from this diagram. Go outside on a dark night and look up.

http://www.thedanceacademynewton.com/classes_newton.html

Edit: ^^ LInk is for breakdancing lessons near Boston this summer. I suppose that is marginally relevant, but here’s the proprer map.

http://souledout.org/nightsky/summertriangle/summertriangle.html

@gailcalled Yes! We saw about 20 in the hour we were there. There was a lot of light pollution though.

@andrew : Lucky, lucky you. I saw a lot of clouds and an occasional glimpse of Jupiter. Too bad, however, that you couldn’t get further away from the urban sprawl.

Saw three in New Hampshire this weekend.

@benjaminlevi: On the same night; within an hour’s period of time, radiating from the same general direction? You also are lucky. I still have a high cloud cover, with only Jupiter barely visible.

One was saturday night, and two were sunday night within about ten minuets from each other.