Clouds may cover part of Perseid meteor shower ‘outburst’
One of the strongest meteor showers of the year is supposed to reach its peak once the sun sets Thursday, Aug. 11.
But cloudy weather over the next two nights may obscure most of the view for Wichitans.
The Perseid meteor shower is one of the best meteor viewing opportunities this year, according to NASA. The meteors show up every August when the Earth ventures through the cosmic debris from an ancient comet.
There are more meteors than normal this year, which astronomers call an “outburst.” The last Perseids outburst happened in 2009.
The Lake Afton Observatory near Goddard is not scheduled to reopen until Labor Day weekend, but it will allow meteor gazers to come out to enjoy the showers.
People can go to the observing pad, an outdoor area just north of the main observatory building, said Harold Henderson, the observatory’s director.
Leave the telescopes at home, though.
“You want very light field of view, and nothing gets lighter than the human eye,” Henderson said.
Henderson said he wasn’t totally convinced the weather would cooperate Thursday and Friday and leave the view of the shower unobstructed.
But “Saturday might be pretty good,” he said.
Vanessa Pearce of the National Weather Service’s Wichita office said that’s because cloudy weather in the area Thursday night is expected to stretch into Friday.
“Tonight or tomorrow aren’t going to be good,” Pearce said. “The best chance of the weekend is going to be Saturday or Sunday.”
“If it was next week, that would be great,” Pearce said.
The Farpoint Observatory near Topeka has scheduled watch parties Thursday and Friday nights for the meteor shower. The status of those parties Thursday afternoon? “Wait and see.”
The Astronomical Society of Kansas City is not hosting any special events until Saturday, when the Powell Observatory near Louisburg is normally open to the public, said Rick Henderson, the group’s president.
“We will definitely talk about the Perseids at that time and tell folks how to watch them,” he wrote in an e-mail.
“Now let’s just hope the weather cooperates.”
Daniel Salazar: 316-269-6791, @imdanielsalazar
This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Clouds may cover part of Perseid meteor shower ‘outburst’."