Every year, from about July 17 through Aug. 24, planet Earth orbits through the debris field of Comet Swift-Tuttle, the parent comet of the Perseid meteor shower.
Add a cosmic perspective to this culmination in our solar system by being outdoors 60 to 75 minutes before sunrise, when the stars of our galaxy populate the dark sky.
Below and left of Jupiter, relatively faint planet Mercury twinkles close above the skyline while, to the right of Mercury, red star Antares, also pale in the dawn light, rises into the winter morning sky.
At the first sight of the clearing, I was wonderstruck by an aerial display of countless blinking golden lights and dipping, curving, white gold lines streaking all over the meadow from the ground up to the treetops.
As sunlight fades from Earth’s atmosphere and dusk deepens, the golden light of true star Arcturus, summer’s brightest, comes into view above Jupiter.
When clock time springs ahead an hour, not-so-early risers may look out a southwest-facing window at dawn to find star-like Jupiter rather low to the horizon.
The Orionid meteor shower, its radiant appearing to be at the upper left of the constellation for which it is named, is forecast to be active from about the 19th through the 22nd, peaking before dawn on the 21st.
On Friday and Saturday, the 7th and 8th, follow a robust crescent moon from midafternoon in the southeast until it completes its arc before midnight in the southwest.
