Escape Georgia Cities Sunday, NASA Advises -- for Best View of August Meteor Showers

Georgians can head out of the cities to the country, mountains and swamps for best views of the Persid meteor shower in dark skies.Photo byGraphic: DeanLand

NASA is advising Georgia citizens to leave the state's cities on Sunday and head to the country, mountains and swamps -- to get the best views of the Perseid meteor shower.

According to recently published NASA tips for viewing the annual meteor showers, cities and suburban areas are awash with man-made light which likely will hide the natural sky phenomenon.

The Perseid media shower will peak on Sunday, Aug. 11 and Monday, Aug. 12, NASA reports For the unfamiliar, the Perseid shower is created by the debris stream of comet Swift-Tuttle. The meteor shower occurs from mid-July through the end of August.

NASA's number 1 meteor shower viewing tip for Georgians: "Get out of the city! Try to get to the darkest location you can. The darker it is where you are, the more meteors you will see streaking across the sky," a NASA blog recommends.

In Georgia, that means getting away from heavily populated areas and busy interstate highways. And according to the website go-astronomy.com, some of Georgia's state parks are among the best sites to view the sky show.

Getting away from Georgia's major cities is best for media viewing. Areas in blue, dark green and lighter green are best for viewing.Photo byMap: cleardarksky.com

Go-Astronomy.com lists 14 Georgia state parks as best viewing sites in the state. Two of the parks, Okefenokee Wildlife Reserve and Stephen C. Foster State Park, rate as the best overall sites in the state for dark sky conditions and optimum viewing. Those parks score a 2 on the Bortle Scale, a handy numerical tool that allows for the measurement of the night sky’s brightness in a given location.

The 12 other Georgia State Parks recommended for best viewing by Go-Astronomy (and their Bortle Scale listings, where available) incude:

• Brasstown Bald
• Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest
• Cohutta Wilderness
• Cooper's Creek
• Cumberland Island National Seashore
• Fort Mountain State Park
• Hamburg State Park 3
• Heartland
• Kolomoki Mounds State Park 3
• Moccasin Creek State Park 3
• Popcorn Overlook
• Providence Canyon State Park 3
• Seminole State Park 3

While the Perseid shower peaks overnight on Sunday, the sky show will continue through the end of August. Between 40 and 50 meteors per hour are expected overnight Sunday and early Monday morning, according to the American Meteor Society. Toward the end of August, daily meteor counts will fall as the Earth moves toward the outer edge of the Swift Tuttle debris stream, predicts the American Meteor Society.