When do meteor showers usually occur?

There are hundreds of meteor swarms every year, but most of them are too small to be observed. There are 39 relatively large meteor showers every year (that is, meteor showers with an hourly flow of more than 3), but there are only 3 stable meteor showers worthy of ordinary people's observation.

The first is the quadrant meteor shower, which is extremely rich on June 38+10/October 3 every year.

The second is the Perseid meteor shower, which is extremely prosperous every August 12.

The third is the Gemini meteor shower, which reached its peak in 65438+February and 65438+March.

These three meteor showers are relatively stable, and the maximum flow is around 100. If the weather is fine, you can go out of the city, and it is not a problem to see 20 meteors per hour.

There are also the Dragon Meteor Shower on October 8th, 65438/KLOC-0 and the Leonid Meteor Shower on October 8th, 65438+ 17/KLOC-0. The flow is unstable, and there may be a big explosion in some years, but these two meteor showers have been relatively calm in recent years. The flow rate is only single digits, so it has no observation value.

There is also the Lyra meteor shower on April 22nd. The Aquarius meteor shower on May 6th,1Orion meteor shower on October 20th,110, and the Taurus meteor shower around May 6th are also meteor showers with relatively large flow. It is also possible to see meteors these days.

If you want to observe, you'd better wait until the Perseid meteor shower on August 12.

Meteor shower is very regional, and Gemini meteor shower can be observed in the area north of 60 south latitude. Chongqing is a natural thing I am in Shanghai, and the landlord is in Chongqing (both by the Yangtze River). Although the difference is about 1500 km, it can be approximately considered that there is no significant difference in observation conditions between the two places.

There are four main factors that affect meteor shower observation.

1. The intensity of the meteor shower. If the flow of a meteor shower is very small, there are naturally no meteors.

Weather, if it's cloudy, don't expect anything.

3. The sky is dark, and the number of meteors seen in a meteor shower is inversely proportional to the limit index (very important).

4. Angle of radiation point height

Let's analyze the discharge of Perseid meteor shower one by one, which is very stable, with a peak of about 80 meteors every year, which means that under the best observation conditions, 80 meteors can be observed in one hour. It is one of the three major meteor showers every year, and it is still very beautiful.

The weather does not belong to astronomy, and now no one dares to say what the weather will be like in a certain place in six months. Let's ignore it first.

The darkness of the sky. The first point is the moon phase. The moon phase in August (20 10) is the third day of the lunar calendar, which has almost no moonlight influence and is worth observing. But if you can only see less than 200 stars in the city, the number of meteors will be discounted (or even more)! There is no observation value for those who watch the excitement.

When the radiation point is below the horizon, no meteors can be seen (there will be grazing meteors 0.5 below the ground). The radiant point of Perseid meteor shower rises at 22 o'clock (Shanghai), and this factor is called secondary factor after midnight.

Generally speaking, the observation conditions of Perseid meteor shower are good. The observation conditions are better in the second half of the night. If the landlord can find a place where he can see the Milky Way in the past (the Milky Way is quite beautiful in summer), there will be at least 200 meteors in one night (there is no problem with the observation method, even if there is a problem with the observation method, it will not be much less). If you can see more than 500 stars, it is no problem to break 100. However, if you are in a city, I'm afraid it's only about 10 a night. If the conditions are poor or not, please be prepared to observe in the city.