Video: Sky watchers on the lookout for new meteor shower

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UPDATE - 12:33 a.m. EDT - Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance Sunnyvale Station are active.

UPDATE - 12:24 a.m. EDT - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center video is active.

If predictions hold true, on Friday night Earth may experience a sandblasting of debris from comet 209P/LINEAR, resulting in a new meteor shower.

In 2012, meteor experts Esko Lyytinen of Finland and Peter Jenniskens at NASA Ames Research Center were the first to announce that Earth was due for a May 2014 encounter with debris from comet 209P/LINEAR. Other meteor experts quickly confirmed this prediction and some did use the words “meteor storm.” The most recent calculations, however, indicate we might get a strong shower, but perhaps not a storm of meteors.

What will you see? As with all meteor showers, the only way to know is to go outside on the night of the predicted peak and see for yourself.

The meteors will radiate from the constellation Camelopardalis (camelopard), a very obscure northern constellation.

Can't see the meteor shower from your location. Bookmark this page and stay tuned Friday night into Saturday morning for updates on where you can observe from online webcams.

Timeline of Events (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

• 8:24 p.m. - Friday – Sunset in Washington, D.C. area.
• 8:30 p.m. - Friday - Jeremie Vaubaillon of IMCCE in Paris, France, predicts debris from the comet will begin to impact the Moon at this point.
• 1:00 a.m. - Saturday - Peter Jenniskens, a scientist with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, will depart from Palo Alto, Calif. aboard an aircraft and head towards Seattle, Wash., in an attempt to observe the meteor shower above any cloud cover. The flight will return to Palo Alto approximately four hours later.
• 3:17 a.m. - Saturday – Moonrise in Washington, D.C. area.
• 3:39 a.m. - Saturday – The International Space Station will be visible in Washington, D.C., area 19 degrees above the horizon.
• 5:51 a.m. - Saturday - Sunrise in Washington, D.C. area.

Online resources:

• DCNewsroom Twitter
• NASA Marshall Space Flight Center video.

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Watch for the Perseid meteor shower this weekend

[UPDATE - 7:37 p.m. EDT] - Meteors showing up on this Ustream broadcast from Valladolid, Spain.

Enjoy a summer evening of sky watching this weekend as the annual Perseid meteor shower peaks Sunday night into Monday morning. Rates can get as high as 100 meteors per hour, with many fireballs visible in the night sky. Early Sunday evening, a waxing crescent moon will interfere slightly with this year's show, but it will have set by the time of the best viewing, just before dawn, Monday morning.

Perseid meteors come across the sky from all directions, a good time to lay back in your favorite lawn chair and look straight up into the dark sky. It is important to be far away from artificial lights, if possible, but not required. Your eyes can take up to 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness, so allow plenty of time for your eyes to “dark-adapt.”

The Perseids have been observed for at least 2,000 years and are associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 years. Each year in August, the Earth passes through a cloud of the comet's debris. These bits of ice and dust -- most over 1,000 years old -- burn up in the Earth's atmosphere to create one of the best meteor showers of the year.

If cloud cover blocks your view, listen to the Perseid meteors by clicking here.

Schedule of Events

Saturday / 8:12 p.m. EDT – Sunset in Washington, D.C. area.

Saturday / 9:55 p.m. EDT – Moonset in Washington, D.C. area.

Saturday / 11:00 p.m. EDT - Join NASA in a live Web chat to watch the Perseids. NASA astronomer Bill Cooke and Danielle Moser and Rhiannon Blaauw from the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center will answer your questions.

Sunday / 8:11 p.m. EDT – Sunset in Washington, D.C. area.

Sunday / approximately 9:00 p.m. EDT - Live broadcast of the skies over NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. begins.

Sunday / 10:28 p.m. EDT – Moonset in Washington, D.C. area.

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