Michigan camping is just a click away, catch the peak of the Perseid meteor shower this week

Real Time Perseid from September 8, 2018. Bright meteors and dark night skies made this year’s Perseid meteor shower a great time for a weekend campout. And while packing away their equipment, skygazers at a campsite in the mountains of southern Germany found at least one more reason to linger under the stars, witnessing this brief but colorful flash with their own eyes. Presented as a 50 frame gif, the two second long video was captured during the morning twilight of August 12. In real time it shows the development of the typical green train of a bright Perseid meteor. A much fainter Perseid is just visible farther to the right. Plowing through Earth’s atmosphere at 60 kilometers per second, Perseids are fast enough to excite the characteristic green emission of atomic oxygen at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so. Credit: Till Credner, AlltheSky.com

by: Ronnie Das

Posted: Aug 9, 2020 / 12:45 PM AST

Updated: Aug 9, 2020 / 12:18 PM AST

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LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – There are plenty of camping opportunities at state parks and recreation areas across Michigan.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has camping destination options still available from Monday, Augst 9th to Thursday, August 13.

If you are a last-minute planner or just want to add some outdoor adventure to a pre-planned trip, check out camping options in the Upper Peninsula, Northern Lower Peninsula, and Southern Lower Peninsula.

This week you can catch the annual Perseid meteor shower peaks on the morning of August 12th, according to NASA. The best time to look up is in the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, but you should be able to catch a glimpse of a few meteors between midnight to dawn any morning the week before or after.

This year the last-quarter moon will interfere with the visibility of fainter meteors, but you will be able to see brighter ones.

The Perseids generally appear to radiate from a point high in the north, called the “radiant,” but just generally look up and you should be able to catch the annual meteor showers.

The showers we observe take place as Earth passes through trails of debris left behind by active comets orbiting the Sun, casting off little bits of dusty debris in their long tails.

The Perseid meteors come from a comet called Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 133 years.