How will shooting stars move away from Perseus for this months Perseid Meteor Shower? Will they move randomly?

Question

I mean will the shooting stars move away from the Perseus constellation is random directions? Are they easy to see?

Answer 1

The Perseid shower is typically one of the brightest showers of the year, meaning that the individual 'shooting stars' are often very bright and their trails are very long and impressive.  The darker the sky , of course, the better, but the perseids is one of few showers that you could see in town.  Take a reclining lawn chair, maybe binocs, but no need for a telescope, bug spray perhaps, a blanky maybe, and a friend or two...oh, and some liquid refreshment of your choice, maybe some snacks, and have fun.

Oh and if you can stay up until about 3 or so, that's when any meteor shower is best...that's when the part of earth that we are on is charging head first into the mass of rocks that are the meteoroids.

Answer 2

There will be some apparent random motion, but due to the Earth's rotation and speed in orbit, most will appear to move East to West.  Before midnight there might be quite a few that appear to be moving West to East due to their much higher orbital velocity.

If you live in or near a large city you may not see anything because of the light pollution.  You are better off getting to a campground as remote as possible, or even hiking to a remote clearing.  One thing you can do to improve your "seeing" is to roll paper or poster-board (preferably black) into a cone shape to block out ground light  This will, of course, limit the area of sky you can see at once, but it may be your only solution where you live.