Phone off, eyes up: How to get the best view of the Perseid meteor show

globalnews.ca:

Western University in London, Ont., where the Global Meteor Network is based.Vida suggests turning your phone off and avoiding any bright lights for at least 10 minutes before you turn your gaze to the sky.“This is how long it’s going to take for your eyes to adjust to darkness. And if you look at your phone or anything bright, you will lose your night vision.

So only then you will be able to really fully appreciate the stars and the number of meteors that you see.”Luckily, this year, the Perseids coincide with the darkest lunar phase.“Just a couple of days after the peak of the Perseids, we’re going to have the new moon, which means that the moon is going to be completely absent in the night sky. So last year we had the full moon and the Perseids were more or less washed out,” Vida explains.“From year to year, the moon conditions change and of course, the weather conditions change, so it’s not every year that you can see them quite as well as this year.”A meteor shower basically involves numerous meteors “coming from the same apparent source in the sky,” called the “radiant,” Vida says.The Perseid meteor shower is so named because the radiant — the point where the meteors appear to be originating from — is in the constellation Perseus.“You can see the Perseids anywhere in the night sky, but the best location is usually around 45 degrees off radiant,” said Vida.Fortunately, 45 degrees off the radiant will take your eye to one of the most well-known constellations: the Big Dipper.“If you see the Big Dipper, that is about 45 degrees off the Perseid radiant and probably the best place to observe, if you can see that in the night sky.