35th Night of Shooting Stars: How to observe them in the Lyon metropolitan area?

This Saturday evening, you'll have to look up and see the sky. Starting on Friday, August 1st, the 35th edition of the Night of the Shooting Stars will reach its peak on the night of August 2nd to 3rd throughout France. This phenomenon comes from the Perseids, shooting stars from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Trapped in ice, this comet has "a dust tail much larger than the others" and "when it comes close to the sun, it is heated, the ice melts, and so the dust is released and we have a whole trail of dust around Swift-Tuttle. And it's when the Earth crosses this dust tail that we have all these shooting stars," explains Françoise Combes, astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory, to our colleagues at France Inter.

Activities are being organized for the occasion in the Lyon metropolitan area. The Lyon Ampère Astronomy Club (CALA) awaits you, for example, in Vaulx-en-Velin, at François Mitterrand Park from 6 p.m. to midnight, with activities, a conference, and a sky observation session from 8 p.m. to midnight. Admission is free.

At the peak expected this evening, "I think we could see about a hundred of them per hour," cosmologist Jean-Philippe Uzan told France Info . He added: "So of course, since they're not all exactly in your field of vision, you're not going to see 100 of them per hour yourself, because you have to turn your head a little to the right, your head to the left, but that's the statistic that's given."

Just one piece of advice: stay as far away from light sources as possible to fully enjoy the show. Telescope, binoculars, or the naked eye—the choice is yours.