Skip to main content

How to watch the 2023 Perseid meteor shower this weekend

This weekend sees the opportunity to catch the best meteor shower of the year, the Perseids, as the Earth passes through a cloud of debris from a comet called Swift–Tuttle. If you fancy doing a bit of stargazing then the evening of Saturday, August 12 is the perfect time to catch the meteor shower. Though if you don’t fancy heading out or if you live somewhere with limited visibility of the sky then there will also be the chance to observe the shower from the comfort of your home thanks to an online livestream of the event.

Meteor showers are the result of tiny particles passing through Earth’s atmosphere and creating streaks across the sky. These showers of many meteors happen at set times each year as they occur when the Earth passes through a particular point in its orbit of the sun. In the case of the Perseids, named as they appear to come from the direction of the constellation Perseus, they occur when the Earth moves through a patch of debris left by an orbiting comet.

Recommended Videos

What to expect from the Perseid meteor shower

A bright Perseid meteor streaked down on August 7, 2010, over buildings at the Stellafane amateur astronomy convention in Springfield, Vermont.
A bright Perseid meteor streaked down on August 7, 2010, over buildings at the Stellafane amateur astronomy convention in Springfield, Vermont. Sky & Telescope / Dennis di Cicco

This year’s shower promises to be a good one, thanks to the warm summer evening and a waning crescent moon which shouldn’t interfere too much with visibility.

“People in the U.S. can reasonably expect to see around 40 Perseids in the hour just before dawn on the peak nights. That’s about one every couple of minutes, which is not bad,” said Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, in a statement. “However, we are assuming you are out in the country, well away from cities and suburbs.”

As Cooke mentions, the amount of light pollution in your area will have a significant effect on how many meteors you are able to see. For the best views, you want to find a dark location far away from cities or other sources of light. You also want to avoid looking at anything bright like a phone screen while you wait, as this can affect your night vision which hampers your ability to see meteors.

The Perseid meteors appear to stream away from the shower's "radiant" point near the border of Perseus and Cassiopeia.
The Perseid meteors appear to stream away from the shower’s “radiant” point near the border of Perseus and Cassiopeia. Sky & Telescope Illustration

Sky & Telescope magazine has this helpful guide on where in the sky you should look for the best view of the shower.

How to watch the Perseid meteor shower online

If finding a safe, warm, and sufficiently dark place to observe the shower would be difficult for you, then another option is to enjoy the shower via a live stream. The Virtual Telescope Project will show a view of the skies as seen from its facility in Manciano, Italy, which you can watch using the video below:

Perseid meteor shower 2023, online observation – 13 Aug. 2022

Coverage begins at 9:30 p.m. ET (6:30 p.m. PT) on Saturday, August 12.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
How to watch SpaceX launch private Fram2 mission tonight
SpaceX's Fram2 crew, set for launch in March 2025.

SpaceX is about to launch its first private human spaceflight mission in nearly seven months.

The mission, set to lift off on Monday evening, will use a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft to send four civilians into a polar orbit, in what will be a first for a human spaceflight mission.

Read more
NASA reveals new launch plan for SpaceX’s Crew-10 — here’s how to watch
The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission.

[UPDATE: SpaceX and NASA scrubbed Wednesday's launch attempt due to a technical issue on the ground. The article below has been updated to include details on the new launch target.]

SpaceX and NASA called off the launch of Crew-10 to the space station on Wednesday evening. They're now targeting 7:03 p.m. ET on Friday, March 14, for the launch of Crew-10 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Read on for full details on how to watch a livestream of the event.

Read more
Watch how astronauts train for the space station’s microgravity
ESA's aircraft for astronaut training.

The main difference between life on the International Space Station (ISS) and life here on terra firma is microgravity, which forces you to float around rather than walk.

To prepare newbie astronauts for such conditions, NASA, or in this case, the European Space Agency (ESA), takes new astronauts on special flights that are able to imitate -- albeit briefly -- the space station's microgravity environment. The important training enables the astronauts to get used to moving, working, and even jumping in microgravity. If they get really good, they'll be able to dance, too.

Read more