If you turn your gaze heavenwards tomorrow evening you could see a spectacular display of between 80 and 100 shooting stars per hour from a good vantage point. But for anyone unable to view the Perseid meteor shower with their own eyes, astronomers the world over will be live-tweeting the event, providing photos and commentary so that you can enjoy the spectacle via your computer screen.
Orchestrated by Newbury Astronomical Society as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the Twitter Meteorwatch will run from nightfall on Tuesday until dawn on Thursday in the UK. Buoyed by the success of their Twitter Moonwatch event earlier this year, the organisers hope that it will get plenty of people fired up about stargazing.
"We realised early on that what people want are images of the night sky, so we used our array of telescopes and cameras to provide a constant stream of pictures which we uploaded straight to Twitter," said Richard Fleet, president of Newbury Astronomical Society. "We were amazed at how excited people were about our Twitter Moonwatch. We had thousands of people who had probably never looked through a telescope before asking us questions directly and viewing images."
Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through a cloud of particles ejected by a comet as its orbit brings it close to the Sun. The particles disintegrate as they enter the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, resulting in streaks of light that can be seen clearly in the night sky.
The Perseid meteor shower is produced by material from comet Swift-Tuttle, which last passed close to the Earth in 1992 and won't be seen again until 2126.
To take part in the Twitter Meteorwatch, follow @NewburyAS and @astronomy2009uk or use the hash tag #meteorwatch. While you're in the neighbourhood, don't forget to drop in on us at @guardianscience.
