Mark Your Calendars For The Perseids In Montana’s Dark Skies

Mark Your Calendars For The Perseids In Montana’s Dark Skies

Meteor Shower - Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Montana is one of the best places in the country to see the Perseid Meteor Shower. Our dark skies with minimal light pollution, along with being in the Northern Hemisphere - help make us a destination for amateur astronomers.

The Perseids meteor shower is the most popular every year because it's generally the easiest to view if the skies are clear. If you're lucky, you might even catch the famous fireballs of The Perseids.

NOTE: Although you have a chance to see The Perseids meteor shower each year, the actual comet that the meteors come from is the Swift-Tuttle...and that comet only swings by the Sun every 135 years.

The peak viewing time in 2025 will be in mid-August, and NASA predicts that the meteor shower will indeed be visible over Montana's early morning sky.

"The Perseids are best viewed in the Northern Hemisphere during the pre-dawn hours, though at times it is possible to view meteors from this shower as early as 10 p.m." (NASA.gov)

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Meteors are essentially bits of broken asteroids and pieces of comet dust. As these pieces enter the Earth's atmosphere, they burn up and appear as streaks across our dark skies.

  • Comet of Origin: 109P/Swift-Tuttle
  • Radiant Constellation: Perseus
  • Active: July 17th to Aug. 23rd, 2025 (Peak night: Aug. 12-13)
  • Observed: Under Dark Skies About 25 meteors per hour
  • Meteor Velocity: 37 miles (59 km) per second

The comet where The Perseids come from is called Swift-Tuttle, and it has a very interesting story of origin:

"Comet Swift-Tuttle was discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle. Swift-Tuttle is a large comet: its nucleus is 16 miles (26 kilometers) across. (This is almost twice the size of the object hypothesized to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs.)" (NASA.gov)

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Filed Under: Montana, weather

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