Perseids in Helsinki

The Perseids meteor shower peaks from Helsinki around Aug 12-13, with up to 150 meteors per hour under ideal conditions. In 2026 a new moon means dark skies, and from Helsinki the radiant in Perseus climbs to 61° above the north-east horizon around 03:10. Local best viewing window: 23:40–03:10 EEST on the peak night, about 3.5 hours of nautical twilight. Scaled to that altitude, the 150/hour headline figure works out to roughly 131 meteors an hour from Helsinki under a genuinely dark sky. At this latitude the sky never gets fully dark that night — the Sun only reaches 15.1° below the horizon — so only the brighter meteors will show. Tonight: unbroken cloud; conditions are as poor as they get.