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It’s a big night for sky watchers around the world starting Thursday when the peak of the famed Perseid meteor shower begins at the same time that the last supermoon of 2022 will rise.
Now, if you’re more excited about the Perseids and the opportunity to see up to dozens of meteors per hour, you’re a little less psyched about the so-called “sturgeon supermoon” we get this August. Full moons have a nasty tendency to both be bright enough to wash out shooting stars and also stay above the horizon for much of the evening.
While this is certainly less than ideal for what is typically the best night of the year for spotting meteors and fireballs, at least in the northern hemisphere, there are measures that can be taken to mitigate the effects of our biggest satellite.
First of all, you can plan ahead a bit and check moonrise and moonset times for your location.
The moon will be at its fullest Thursday, which is when some predictions have the peak of the Perseids beginning. These forecasts for maximum meteor activity vary a bit, but generally speaking, any time between now and Sunday morning gives you a decent chance to catch plenty of shooting stars.
Something that’s much more reliably predicted is when the moon will rise, and while it comes up very near sunset on Thursday, spoiling much of the evening, it rises about a half hour later each following night.
This means that on Friday and Saturday evening you get about a half-hour and an hour more of moonless twilight skies, respectively, to search the dome above us for those fleeting lights.
But once the moon comes up in the east on those evenings, it doesn’t have to mean that all the fun is over.
You can employ some basic strategy to keep it from spoiling things as much as possible. Simply orient yourself to put some sort of screen between that bright moon and your vantage point. For example, if you’re watching in the twilight hours after sunset, put the moon at your back and find something solid like a building or tall tree to put between you and the moon. This obviously works better closer to moonrise when it is still low in the sky.
The sky still won’t be as dark as if it were a new moon, but you can maximize your meteor-spotting experience this way.
It’s also crucial to get as far away from human-produced light pollution as possible. A big field next to a barn or other structure that you can put between you and the moon is your ideal situation this week.
Best of luck and if you manage to get any great images, please share them!
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