Spectacular meteor next week will be visible in Wirral

Aug 5 2009 Birkenhead News

Comet 460

IT’S TIME to gaze towards the night sky because a prolific meteor shower is heading to Wirral.

If it’s a clear night, you will be able to see the Perseids, which come from the radiant of Perseus, in the North West direction after midnight on August 12 and 13.

This shower is made up of dust, ice and rock that has fallen from the comet Swift-Tuttle.

Most of this dust is approximately a thousand years old, but there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that boiled off the comet in 1862.

They will appear as shooting stars and burning fireballs, which can be green and red in colour.

Ken Clark of the Liverpool Astronomy Society said: “You don’t need to be an astronomer or have a telescope because this shower is best viewed with the naked eye. I suggest you get a deck chair and a hot water bottle and sit out in your garden on the night they are going to show.

“Look to the North Eastern horizon and hopefully if it’s a clear night you’ll see them.