Perseid meteor shower comes to Seattle, but don't expect too much of it - The Seattle Times

The annual Perseid meteor shower may have peaked early Saturday, but the shooting stars typically can be seen through Aug. 22.

Don't expect too much, however, over the next few days. Increasingly clouds and possible rain beginning Sunday mean the Seattle area won't be the best place for night sky gazing. Even if the skies clear up, the brightness of the moon could overwhelm the meteors.

If you're determined to look at the show anyway, drive to a place far from city lights and look west, where the moon and constellation Perseus will be setting.

"There's no predicting it from year to year," says Mike Langley of Seattle Astronomical Society. A "good" shower features 20 or 30 meteors per hour, although at its peak the Perseids can feature one or more a minute.

Meteors are tiny particles left over from comets as they travel around the sun, Langley says, vaporizing in a tenth of a second as they hit our atmosphere.

"Most meteors are about the size of a grain of sand," he said.