Meteor Shower Confusion...

Question

When someone says a meteor shower peaks on the night of august 12, do they mean the night of august 12 including the hours after midnight (the 13th) or the night of august 11 and the post-midnight hours of early august 12?

I'm stupid, I know.

Thank you in advance for your answer!

Answer 1

When talking about time for astronomical events the timezone should be specified.  The convention is to use UTC but NASA tends to use EDT or CDT, and sometimes assumes we know which they are using!

It is important because for example for us in New Zealand we are ahead of EDT by (at present) 16 hours so we can be on a different day.

So no you are not stupid, just a little confused as we all are by NASA's use of local times!

Answer 2

This year, the peak of the Perseid meteor shower is expected to be in the early hours of the 12th of August, therefore during the night of 11th/12th. There is an article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/...

There should still be plenty of meteors visible on the preceding and following nights because the peak isn't all that sharp.