OAK HARBOR — August will be a good month for Whidbey astronomers — amateur and professional alike — with the Perseid meteor shower beginning this weekend and a full lunar eclipse coming later this month.

Starting tomorrow after dark, the Perseid meteor shower, an annual fireworks display of a celestial magnitude, will begin as earth passes through the remnants of the comet Swift-Tuttle, a comet that passes through the inner solar system every 130 years.

The remnants consist of fragments of the comet’s tail, mostly the size of a grain of sand, said Richard Owens, secretary and founder of the Island County Astronomical Society. But some can be larger.

“Most meteors that you see from the Perseid Meteor shower are about the size of a grain of sand and are hitting the atmosphere at an average of 30,000-40,000 miles per hour,” he said.

“They literally burn up. Some of the brighter ones can be the size of a pebble. On rare occasions, you can get one the size of a softball,” he said.

The great thing about the Perseid meteor shower is that you don’t need any special equipment like telescopes to enjoy the show, Owens said.

“The best way to view a meteor shower is to take a lounge chair or some kind of chair that you can lean back and just look up in the sky,” he said. “And you can and look at the large area of sky and you will see a large flash across the sky. All you need is a good viewing place and a chair.”

While the earth passes through the debris field for a month, the best time to view the meteors is Sunday evening and early Monday morning.

“The Perseid meteor shower is a very good meteor shower. The best part of the shower will occur on the morning of Monday, the 13th around 2 a.m.,” he said. “But you can actually start viewing the Perseids any time after dark on the 12th.”

However, South Enders can get a jump on the Perseids tonight when the South Whidbey Parks & Recreation District hosts a “Meteor Shower in the Park” at the Community Park in Langley from 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

A lunar eclipse is next on the menu for astronomers when during early morning on Aug. 28, the moon will pass through Earth’s shadow.

“The lunar eclipse begins around 2 a.m. and ends after 4 a.m. on Aug. 28 with totality around 3 a.m. The moon is already going to be actually pretty high up, toward the west,” said Owens. “It will be a full moon, then you will see it slowly start darkening up.”

Earth’s shadow consists of two parts, said Owens, the penumbra, or larger part of the shadow and the umbra, the darker.

“As it moves from the penumbra into the umbra, you will actually start to see a reddish color on the moon,” said Owens. “When you are seeing the moon like that, what you are actually seeing is the earth blocking the sunlight from reaching the moon except for the light that is being refracted around the earth’s atmosphere. So literally what you are seeing are the oranges and reds of the sunsets and sunrises all the way around the edge of the earth.”

For more information about these and other stargazing events, call Owens at 360-675-2269.

Spencer Webster can be reached at 221-5300 or at swebster@southwhidbeyrecord.com