Thaindian News

Ever since the announcements for the sighting of the Perseids Meteor Shower for the year 2009 have been made, people have been quite excited to get a glimpse of the bright and dazzling meteors whizzing past in the sky. Though the meteor shower has been visible for sometime now, since July 17, it was announced that from the morning of August 12 to 13, the astral extravaganza would be seen in a most pronounced way. The reason being that on the Aug. 12, the meteor shower was said to reach its peak and the sheer volume therefore was real dense.

The best time to be able to visualize this celestial fireworks was judged to be in the evening of Aug. 13, just before the moon came up in the horizon to light the night sky or before the dawn. The best direction in which to look up to, in order to witness the meteor showers is towards the North eastern Horizon.

The Perseids are said to be one of the most visually brilliant batch of meteor shower that skims the earth’s hemisphere, the result of the comet Swift Tuttle. It is also a very punctual one, arriving every year at about the same span of time, around August.

There is a brief history related to the Perseid’s, which is also known by its other name of “Tears of St. Lawrence”. The courageous saint had been burnt alive at stake on the 10th of August and as the Perseids arrived annually at about the same time, people had come to the conclusion that it was the miraculous intervention of the saint and named according to it.