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After a relatively calm spring, the first meteor shower of the summer is finally on its way. On the night of Wednesday, July 28, two separate meteor showers will peak at exactly the same time, which means you should expect a cosmic spectacle worth staying up late or getting up early.
The South Delta aquariids will be on view from July 12 to August 23, 2021, with a peak before dawn on July 29, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS); Alpha Capracornids will be visible from July 3 to August 15, peaking around the same time as the other downpour.
Although the Delta Aquariids will produce a more consistent shower, with 12 faint meteors per hour on average, according to the Griffith Observatory, the Alpha Capracornids offer around five strong and bright shooting stars every hour, notes the AMS. (They make a perfect couple, if you ask us.)
You can look anywhere during a meteor shower, but the best part of the sky to observe is usually “about 30 degrees from the beam point,” says AMS. The “radiant point” refers to the rough spot from which the shooting stars seem to emerge, so point in the general direction the meteors will appear – which, in this case, is low in the southern sky.
And the best news is, all you really need to do is watch, “You can experience the magic of the night without any equipment,” says Jackie Faherty, a Hubble fellow at the Carnegie Institute for Science’s Earth and Planets Laboratory. Just give your eyes 15-20 minutes of darkness to adjust. “Don’t look at your phone or you’ll ruin your night vision,” she explains.
While two meteor showers peaking at the same time should make the whole show, it’s not even the most spectacular cosmic show of 2021; the Perseids, which NASA calls “the best meteor shower of the year,” began on July 17 and will peak two weeks later on the night of Wednesday August 11.
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