Every year, in mid -August, the night sky lights up with a meteor rain, becoming a true work of art. The reason? The rain of the persistent or tears of San Lorenzo. A phenomenon that occurs when the earth crosses the rubble field left by the Swift -Tuttle comet, causing thousands of fleeting stars per hour that cross the sky. This is the perfect opportunity to go to public observations as a family and witness this phenomenon.
The astronomical group of Huesca and its local headquarters invite the entire community to the public observations that carry out next weekend in three points in the province. On Sunday, August 10, the match will be in the hermitage of the joy of Monzón, and on Tuesday, August 12, the Walqa Technology Park (behind the Ramón y Cajal building), and together with the hangar of Sariñena’s planes.
An activity for all ages
The observations they make in the Walqa Technology Park are very familiar activities so that children, parents and grandparents can enjoy the activity. The president of the group, Alberto Solanes, says that the little ones are the most “enthusiastic” and the most “questions”: “They want to know everything, they like everything related to space and astronomy.”
For this reason, in the observations, framed at the San Lorenzo festivities, there is a brief talk to explain the main aspects of the summer night sky and the Perseids. “We explain the constellations, what are the circumpolar, the ecliptic, the constellations of the zodiac, the summer triangle, some cluster or nebula …”, explains Solanes.
The group makes several telescopes available to visitors that are rotating so that they can approach and observe the moon well and other celestial objects that focus. For the activity – which lasts from eleven o’clock at night to approximately five in the morning – about 2,000 people come throughout the night.
Without a doubt, the favorite moments of visitors have to do when there is a luminous leak. “People shout those famous” oooh “that are heard throughout the park. With which, the bustle is huge when a fleeting star is seen,” says the president of the group.
The visibility peak of the Perseids will be on August 12
The meteoritic rain of the Perseids is visible without telescopes between mid -July and mid -August of each year, and its peak of visibility coincides, almost always, with the day we commemorate San Lorenzo. Thus, this year, the maximum of the Perseids will take place on Tuesday, August 12 from 10 pm. However, for those days the moon will finish passing its full phase and will be very illuminated, which will make it difficult to see them as well as in other years.
Although this activity is integrated within a specific program, it is part of a wide cultural offer that extends throughout the summer by numerous locations of Aragon. Throughout the month of August, about 90 proposals distributed by regions such as Huesca, Monegros, Somontano, Five Villas, Jacetania, Alto Gállego, Sobrarbe, Cinca Medio or Ribagorza.
