In august we pass through an astiroid belt dose any one know what the best night for viewing the meteor shower

Answer 1

The Perseids are meteors that will appears to stream out of the constellation Perseus.

The Earth is passing very close to the orbit of comet Swift-Tuttle. The comet has been spreading lots of "junk" (small pebbles, grains, tiny pieces of ice...) around its orbit and if you were to plot the orbits of ALL this junk, the whole thing would look like a tube stretched out around the Sun.

The Earth passes inside this tube (but does not cross the orbit of the comet itself). It takes us about a week to cross the "tube" of orbits so that, during this time, the number of meteors will appears higher than normal.

The maximum occurs when Earth is the closest to the centre of the tube (i.e., closest to the orbit of the comet, even though the comet itself is not there) and that occurs on August 13, 2007, at 5 h (Universal Time), or 1 a.m. Eastern Daylight-saving Time. That's late on the evening of the 12th, as others are saying.

The expected rate is about 60 meteors per hour. However, the rate is at least half of maximum for two days on either side (meaning: the show should still be acceptable from evening of Aug. 10 to morning of Aug. 15).

Perseid meteors are not big but they come in very fast (60 km/s = 140,000 mph), so that they are very bright -- but disappear very quickly. You have to watch. You can't wait for someone else to tell you: "hey, look over there! There's a... forget it, its gone."

You need a dark sky and a clear view to the North East (at least close to midnight). After midnight, meteors could be in any part of the sky; they will appears to streak away from the constellation Perseus (rising in the North East after midnight).

This year could be better than average because the Moon will not be in the sky (when the Moon is up, it is difficult to observe the fainter meteors because of the light from the Moon).

Now, if we can only be lucky for the weather...

Answer 2

we don't pass through the asteroid belt. the asteroid belt is a belt of asteroids outside of mars's orbit, earth never even gets close to them. we're just passing through the debris left by a comet, like the other said.

Answer 3

after middle of the night your area has circled to the best factor the place the meteorites are, this implies you notice them greater useful because of the fact they're being run into by using the factor of the planet you're on.

Answer 4

The Perseid's can best be viewed on the 12th. ( If the sky is clear).