A summer meteor shower has hit its peak but skywatchers should be able to see some meteors streaking across the sky through the end of the week, astronomers say.
Monday and Tuesday nights would be the peak for the 2014 Delta Aquarid shower, normally a minor shower with around 15 or 20 meteors an hour that this year will benefit from dark skies courtesy of a new moon, they say.
Most of the globe will get a chance to see them, although the best viewing will be from the southern hemisphere or in the tropics of the northern hemisphere.
Live webcasts were set up to capture the shower. The Slooh community observatory said it was using new equipment in hopes of showing as many of the shower's meteors as possible.
"The results obtained by this new equipment are what's primarily fascinating," said Slooh astronomer Bob Berman. "We're hoping to capture more meteors than ever before, despite the modest nature of this relatively little-known shower."
Astronomers say they exact source of the Delta Aquarid shower every July or August remains unknown, although they say they suspect the shower is the result of the Earth traveling though the debris path of Comet Macholtz, first observed in 1986.
Dust and particles shed by the comet in its orbit around the sun burn up if they enter the Earth's atmosphere, creating the showers of meteors visible from the ground on dark nights.
"The slightly mysterious nature of these often-overlooked shooting stars adds to the night's fun," Berman said.
August will also see the annual return of the celebrated Perseid shower, normally the brightest and most dramatic of the celestial light shows that will peak this year on August 12 and 13.
However, a nearly-full and bright moon will significantly interfere with observing this year's Perseids, which means the Delta Aquarid shower, thanks to it coinciding with the dark sky of a new moon, may be the best chance meteor watchers get to satisfy their observing appetite for some time.
Six other minor showers will occur between Aug. 3 and Aug. 15, astronomers say, with all but one of them enjoying dark nights that should give the best possible observing results.
Five of them will appear to originate from the constellations Capricornus and Aquarius, both of which will be high in the southern sky between about 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. in any observer's local time.
