Despite the Perseid meteor shower being more visible in the northern hemisphere, due to the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit, the shower was also spotted from the exceptionally dark skies over ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.
The 2010 Perseid meteor shower was predicted to experience peak activity August 12-13, 2010.
Two Kappa Cygnids (top left corner) and a plethora of Perseids adorn this image of the northeastern summer sky by Koen Miskotte, the Netherlands, on August 12-13, 2007.
Brian Emfinger photographed this early Perseid meteor shower fireball, with a smoke trail, from Ozark, Arkansas just after midnight on Sunday, July 26, 2009.
2006 Perseid Meteor Shower: Jim Gamble photographed this "nice, bright and long magnitude -8.6 Perseid" using an all-sky camera at the El Paso Station of the Sandia All Sky Camera Network.
The unexpected September Perseid meteor shower was captured by the automated Sentinel all-sky camera in this composite of images from Sept. 9, 2008.
Skywatcher Ivo Leupi snapped this photo of a meteor during the Perseid meteor shower on Aug. 9, 2010 from Westmeath, Ontario in Canada at about 1:30 am local time.
The 2010 Perseid meteor shower is lighting up the August skies. This image shows two composite views taken on the night of Aug. 11, 2010. The image on the left shows a collection of observations taken from 42 single station events over Huntsville, Ala. The image on the right shows a composite view from 39 single station events over Chickamauga, Ga.
On the night of August 3 at 9:56 p.m.a Perseid meteor -- about 1 inch in diameter and moving at a speed of 134,000 mph -- entered the atmosphere 70 miles above the town of Paint Rock, Ala. At such a tremendous velocity, the meteor cut a path some 65 miles long, finally burning up 56 miles above Macay Lake, just northeast of the town of Warrior. The meteor was about six times brighter than the planet Venus and would be classified as a fireball by meteor scientists.
A bright Perseid meteor crosses the sky over Huntsville, Ala. on July 26, 2011.
A compilation of events seen during the peak of the 2010 Perseid meteor shower on Aug. 13, 2010, over Huntsville, Ala.
Close-up image of a Perseid "fireball" meteor.
On the night of August 12, 2010, astronomer Marco Verstraaten recorded a series of exposures capturing meteors in the Perseid Meteor Shower over a period of 6 hours using a wide angle lens from a not-so-dark site in the Netherlands.
Astronomer Jimmy Westlake captured this bright Perseid meteor, in spite of a bright combination of moonlight and auroral glow over Colorado skies in August 2000.
Storms on the distant horizon and a Perseid meteor racing above combine in this nightscape. Robert Arn recorded this scene in the early hours of August 13, 2010, from the Keota Star Party site on the Pawnee National Grasslands of northeastern Colorado, USA. Bright Jupiter shines through the clouds at right.
A mountain top above the clouds and light-polluted cities of Romania served as a good spot from which astrophotographer Alex Tudorica could watch the 2008 Perseid meteor shower. This composite picture from one of the highest points in Romania, the Omu summit (2,507 meters) in the Southern Carpathian Mountains, captured about 20 of the shower's bright streaks.
Yuichi Takasaka created this image during the 2008 Perseid Meteor Shower, showing a colorful waterfront view of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The picture combines many consecutive 2-second exposures that cover a total time of 1 hour and 33 minutes. The gap in the single meteor trail was caused by the time gap between the consecutive frames.
Wally Pacholka produced this image of the 2008 Perseid Meteor Shower. The image is one of over 350 frames captured on August 12, 2008, in the Joshua Tree National Park, in California, USA.
This bright Perseid meteor streaking through skies near Lake Balaton, Hungary on August 8, 2010, served as advance guard for the meteor shower that was scheduled to peak a few days later. In the foreground stands the region's Church of St. Andrew ruin, with bright Jupiter dominating the sky to its right. Two galaxies lie in the background: our own Milky Way, and the faint smudge of the more distant Andromeda Galaxy just above the ruin's leftmost wall.
On August 13, 2009, the moon was seen here above rock formations in the Alborz Mountains near Firouzkooh, Iran. With a dramatic desert landscape in the foreground, a Perseid meteor streaked through the moonlit sky between the overexposed Moon and bright planet Jupiter at the upper right.
Photographer Gary Rader caught this Perseid meteor west of Wichita, Kansas, on August 13, 2011.
Photographer Abe Megahed caught this Perseid meteor over Madison, Wisconsin, August 13, 2011.
Photographer Mike Hankey caught this Perseid fireball over Freeland, Maryland, on August 12, 2011.
Photographer Chris Poldervaart caught this Perseid meteor and star trails over South Park, Colorado on August 13. 2011.
Photographer Jeff Berkes caught this Perseid meteor over Monument Valley, Utah, on August 1, 2011.
Photographer Jeff Berkes caught this Perseid meteor over Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah, on July 30, 2011.
Photographer Jeff Berkes caught this Perseid meteor over West Chester, Pennsylvania, on August 13, 2011.
