See a meteor shower!

Have you ever seen a shooting star? Of course, they aren't really stars, but bits of dust that fall through the Earth's atmosphere, burning up and creating those long streaks in the night sky. At certain times of the year the Earth experiences meteor showers. One of the best is the Perseid meteor shower that takes place in August. The best time to look is on the evening of 12 August, but you will still be able to see meteors a few days either side.

Download this meteor observing form to help you record your meteor sightings!

A good project is to make a list of how many shooting stars you can see, and have a competition with your friends to see who can find the most! You might want to lie down on a sun lounger so you can look straight up at the sky without getting a sore neck. You'll also need some paper, a pen or pencil and a watch. Every time you see a meteor write down the time, what it looked like and where in the sky it came from.

Some sky charts to help you with the constellations feature in the latest issue of Starlight (issue 5) which will soon be available to download from this website. To help you even more we've also made a meteor observing form, which you can download here now or by clicking the icon above.

Good luck!