It’s balmy summer nights like this when you should lie down on a meadow and just look up. A small tail, a bright flash, can be discovered quickly and frequently – and then, as is well known, one has a wish. August is the shooting star month par excellence. The reason for this is the Perseids, a cloud of debris from a comet. They were particularly active around August 13 this year. On their orbit around the sun, the particles hit the atmosphere of our planet – and so we see a shooting star as they burn up.
The picture from the planetarium of the Deutsches Museum shows the starry sky over Munich during these days and nights. However, you would never be able to see the Milky Way like this in the city, this is only possible from the museum’s observatory – because of the so-called light pollution.
But you can clearly see the starry sky in darker places without stray light from lanterns or houses, for example at the Deininger Weiher in the south of the city.