Simon's Blog - The Sky At Night

What a great idea for a long running tv show!

But can you spot the two astronomical treats in Greg's photo from the New Forest Observatory?

Well if you know your night skies you'll have definitely spotted the Summer Triangle which features Deneb in the constellation of Cygnus, incidentally the 19th brightest star in the sky, also Vega which is the fifth brightest and finally Altair, which is the 12th brightest star.

And did you also spot the meteor?

Yes it's that line at the bottom left and if you fancy a bit of meteor action of your own, you could be in luck for the next week and a half.

The annual opportunity to see plenty of bright lights hurtling through the sky means that the Perseid Meteor Shower is visible again. It's caused by the Earth passing through the rocky debris left behind by the Swift-Tuttle Comet.

The peak of the shower will be on the night of 11th and the early morning of 12th and that's when there could be as many as two or three meteors a minute.

But there's still plenty to see in any clear skies over the next few nights, so just lie down, which helps to avoid the light pollution, and look up towards the sky in the north east and fingers crossed you'll see something.

Mind you there are lots of other things to see too.

That's the Milky Way over the lifeboat station in Selsey, photographed Jamie Fielding.

And here it is again in this picture from Martin Dolan.

That's the Hardy Monument in Dorset, which is 72 feet high and was erected in 1844 in memory of Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, who was a commander at the Battle of Trafalgar but who wasn't the author Thomas Hardy!

And finally here are some amazing star trails in the sky above Ashley Heath from Nick Lucas.

So if you manage to capture a night-time treat on camera please send me an email to meridianweather@itv.com or you can always tweet me @SimonParkinITV if you're on Twitter.