Monday Night Meteors: what you need to know about tonight’s meteor shower

It could be a double feature in Monday’s night sky.

Two meteor showers – the southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids – are expected to peak overnight.

“Meteor activity always peaks in the summertime,” Scott Young, Manitoba Museum’s planetarium astronomer, told CTV News. “Now, there’s actually over 100 different meteor showers throughout the year, but most of them are very, very minor. The two that are peaking tonight are kind of on the minor side.”

Young said there may not be a lot of activity tonight, but said there should be plenty to see over the coming weeks, culminating with the Perseid meteor shower around August 12.

Young explained meteors are specks of dust crashing into Earth’s atmosphere at tremendous speeds. The friction causes the dust to vaporize in a flash of light – which is what we see on a clear night. He said the best time to spot them here in Manitoba is between midnight and dawn.

“This is a late-night kind of thing,” Young said. “After midnight, the floodlights sort of go on, and you get a lot more afterwards.”

Young encourages people to head out of town and avoid bright lights. He said that includes turning the car headlights off once parked and avoiding looking at phone screens.

“As soon as you look at any kind of bright light, your eyes turn back into day mode and you can’t see meteors for about 10 minutes,” Young explained. “So you really need to get away, disconnect, and just look at the stars.”

Young said observing a meteor shower can be a waiting game – a brilliant streak of light will flash across the sky only to be followed by several minutes of inactivity.

“You never know exactly what you’re going to get with a meteor shower, but this is the perfect time to start watching the skies.”

Young said places like Birds Hill Park and Oak Hammock Marsh are popular destinations at the peak of meteor shower season.

“You’ll see these spontaneous star parties erupt of people just all finding themselves in the same field looking up,” Young said. “I love to go to those because you just see a whole bunch of people that are seeing it, maybe for the first time… It really is a magical kind of time when you’re out under the stars and just sharing stories with your fellow humans.”