The Perseid meteor shower is closely approaching and will peak in the dark morning of August 12th. This is the best time to see it because the bright moon, that could block out some meteors, will set at midnight on the 11th. Don’t miss this incredible sight of seeing a predicted 200 meteors an hour, each traveling at over 35 miles per second!
Also while gazing into the vastness of our universe try to spot many easily recognizable constellations. The most important one to find is Perseus the Hero. Most of this mythological slayer of Medusa will be rising at 11:00pm August 11th. One more reason to watch the meteors in the morning, though, is that Perseus will continue to rise into the northeast every hour. The higher Perseus climbs, the better chance you have at seeing more meteors. Looking a few degrees north, the iconic W symbol of Cassiopeia will be visible. This myth states that Cassiopeia was a beautiful queen whose daughter was Andromeda. Unfortunately, Cassiopeia thought that she was more beautiful than everyone, and this angered the beautiful Nereids of the sea. Consequently, a sea monster was sent to teach her a lesson. The beautiful queen had to sacrifice her daughter to make amends and calm the monster. Fortunately, Perseus came in to rescue Andromeda and saved the day. These two were married and put in the sky side-by-side. Lastly, almost straight up in the sky at 4 am will be the flying horse, Pegasus. This is easily seen because the body of this creature creates a giant square in the sky.
Closer to Earth than these deep space stars, the ISS (International Space Station) has reached a milestone of 100,000 revolutions around the Earth. This most expensive object built by humans, over 100 billion dollars, continues to orbit and conduct experiments. Although not every problem has been solved yet. Bone loss is still a major issue for astronauts, because, without the gravity of Earth to fight them, the bones can afford to reduce in mass to maintain optimal efficiency. Additionally, the flight up into space has health issues as well. One of many of them is a change in vision. Specialists theorize that during the flight into space, the tremendous amount of pressure, that the thrusters put on the body, pushes fluids up towards the head. These fluids could actually push on the eyes enough to change their shape, thusly changing their effectiveness. Nevertheless, the ISS is a truly amazing structure, and if you are lucky enough you could be able to see it.
If you are going to duke it out with the moonlight and watch the meteors on the night of the 11th, then you should also look to spot the ISS. At 9:25pm, it will rise in the north, northwest and set in the east, northeast. The station will only reach about 23 degrees high in the sky and will be up for about three minutes, so look carefully.