The annual Perseid meteor shower — one of the most highly anticipated meteor showers of the year — peaked overnight on Aug. 12-13. Despite the fact that bright light from a nearly-full moon obstructed the view of fainter meteors this year, skywatchers were still treated to an incredible show with up to dozens of meteors streaking through the sky every hour.
Click through this gallery to see some amazing photos of this year's Perseid meteor shower, brought to you by Space.com readers! We'll update this gallery as more photos come in.
A bright Perseid meteor dashes across the sky above a blazing wildfire near the village of Velmej in Macedonia.
Astrophotographer Stojan Stojanovski said he waited more than 3 hours to capture this shot of a Perseid meteor above the fire, while he saw about 10 to 15 meteors per hour overall.
Two Perseid meteors "photobomb" an image of the Andromeda galaxy in this photo taken by Omid Qadrdan in Iran. Qadrdan used an iOptron SkyTracker mount with a Fujifilm X-A1 digital camera and a 60mm zoom lens to create this stacked composite.
Multiple bright Perseid meteors streak through the skies over Macedonia in this fisheye view captured by astrophotographer Stojan Stojanovski on Monday night (Aug. 12).
(Image credit: Chris Bakley)
A bright Perseid meteor darts through a purple sky early Monday morning (Aug. 12) in this shot by astrophotographer Chris Bakley in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. In the distance about halfway down the photo, another fainter meteor can be seen dashing to the left.
In this photo taken near the East Point Lighthouse in Heislerville, New Jersey, a meteor appears to skewer a star in the top left corner. However, that bright light is not really a star, but rather the meteor itself exploding. Astrophotographer Jeff Berkes said the bright spot was not there in photos taken before and after this one.
Astrophotographer Tony Corso captured this photo of a Perseid meteor from his home just outside Paris, Texas early Monday morning (Aug. 12).
If you look closely, you'll see the pinkish-orange meteor has a faint green tail. The color of a meteor, or "shooting star," depends on its chemical composition.
If you view this photo in full screen, you'll see two Perseid meteors that appear to be heading for a head-on collision above the barn. After photographing the meteor shower from his home near Paris, Texas, Tony Corso said he "found two frames right next to each other shot back to back and caught two brief meteors nearly in the identical spot but coming from the opposite direction." He merged the two images to create this view. "They look like they are about to collide ... or kiss," he said.
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Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.
