Shooting stars have been a mysterious phenomenon for most of human history and have built up a mythos for themselves. They say if you make a wish upon one, that wish will come true. Of course, nowadays we know shooting stars are just meteors – asteroids which have fallen into the atmosphere and started burning up through the force of friction. Nevertheless, the meteor shower remains a dazzling phenomenon that attracts many people to come watch whenever it happens.

Astronomers from all over, usually amateurs, flock to spots with clear skies to spot them. The meteors start on July 26th and end August 17th, although their most frequent fall rate will only be on August 11th and 12th.

The Perseids aren’t the only meteor shower visible from the Earth, though. Five smaller showers will fall, dimmer and fewer in numbers than the big one. They roughly fall between 1 and 3 in the morning and fly in a direction away from a singular coordinate on the night sky that they originated from. If a meteor doesn’t visibly move, it’s safe to assume it’s either not a meteor or the meteor is headed straight towards you.

The Capricornids shower is the first to come along, with its peak being foreseen for July 26th. Meteor showers will usually extend 10-20 days before and after the peak. Only a couple of Capricornids show up every hour, but they’re usually quite bright. The Delta Aquarids, who peaks on the 29th of the month, are composed of two radiants, or the point in the sky from which all a shower’s meteors fly from.

The Piscis Austrinids reaches its maximum level of cosmic rainfall two days after the Delta Aquarids, however the viewing experience is much better in the Southern Hemisphere. Alpha Capricornids, in the meanwhile, comprise of slow, bright yellow fireball meteors with long trails. Unfortunately, a nearly full moon will be shining on August 2nd, the peak of this shower, rendering many of the meteors invisible.

There’s one last smaller meteor shower before the Perseids, the Iota Aquarids. It also originates from 2 different radiants, but only shows 6 of its offspring to be visible per hour under good conditions on August 6th. The shooting stars can only be observed until about 10:30pm though, when the Moon rises and brightens the sky.

Finally, come the Perseids, the highlight of the stargazing summer calendar. They’re expected to be a very good watch this year as there’s almost no Moon to interfere with the clear night sky and the meteors are expected to interact with the Earth during the morning hours on August 13th. We can expect 50-100 fast and bright, flaring asteroids per hour on average. They start falling around July 17th and will go until about August 24th.

Whilst it would technically be best to see a meteor shower when it’s at its peak, the reality is that various factors can come up to prevent that, even just the Moon simply being too bright. However, the showers don’t just last one day. They usually last multiple weeks, in fact, during which they fluctuate in intensity. Meteor showers don’t have an explicit beginning and end, they are both gradual and indefinite.

The main obstacle to stargazing, including watching meteor showers, is the pollution in the air. Obviously, it can’t be cloudy, as that would block our view, but it also can’t be bright otherwise the light will dilute the light from the shooting stars. Most cities on our planet don’t offer conditions to stargaze properly due exactly to this light pollution. Instead, to get the best chances it’s better to go into a field or climb a hill far outside of any settlement of significant size so that the stars can be observed.

In the case of Portugal, the best spots to go stargazing would be the middle of the Alentejo and the Western Azores, two incredibly rural areas. Despite being home to only 11 million people, Portugal is one of the more densely illuminated countries in Western Europe. Nowhere near the density of the Benelux countries or Italy, but denser than France and Spain. The only places on the continent to achieve a brightness of 22 magnitude/arc second^2, the measurement for a total lack of artificial luminosity: half of Iceland, the Northern-most Scottish Highlands, the innermost depths of Scandinavia, and many areas in Russia.

Despite the existence of more pristine skies though, the quality of the night sky in Portugal will work just fine if the goal is to just watch the meteor showers. They absolutely won’t be visible from within city limits but find a nice spot out in the country and with enough patience, a shooting star is sure to be found. Remember to make your wish!

Author

Star in the 2015 music video for the hit single “Headlights” by German musician, DJ and record producer Robin Schulz featuring American singer-songwriter Ilsey. Also a journalist.

Jay Bodsworth