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Weather conditions just right for meteor shower viewing


File photo (NASA){p}{/p}
File photo (NASA)

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(WLUK) -- Weather conditions look perfect to view a meteor shower this weekend.

Thanks to the comet Swift-Tuttle, which goes around the sun every 130 years, a Perseid meteor shower will give star gazers an amazing show during evening hours of Saturday and Sunday.

Alan Peche, the director of the Barlow Planetarium in Menasha, says the peak will be Sunday evening into the twilight hours of Monday with 50 to 60 meteors falling per hour.

Peche says you don't need any optical instruments to get a nice view of the meteor shower, just a dark sky, away from city lights.

He also says to look northeast and just like watching fireworks, "always make sure you’re looking at a big section of the sky, don’t try to zero in on one section."

Peche explains, "A comet is basically a dirty ice ball and as it goes around the sun, especially when it gets close, it starts to fall apart and pieces fall off of it and what happens is these pieces, these tiny chunks of the comet, end up trailing behind the comet in this orbit. "

If you're able to take any photos or videos of the meteor shower, we'd love to see them. You can upload them through Chime In below:


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