AUG 9, 2004 - "Unusually Good" Meteor Shower: that's what this week's annual Perseid event promises to be. Watch for it on a nearly moonless Wednesday night (the 11th) into the wee hours of Thursday morning. Depending on where you are at the time - Europe and Asia get the best of this one, around midnight on the 11th - you could see anywhere from one to several meteors a minute. They could be brighter and more plentiful than usual this time around, as Earth plows through a relatively undisturbed filament of the Swift-Tuttle comet detritus - the particles of which become meteors when they burn up entering Earth's atmosphere. Watch for 'em, radiating from the constellation Perseus, starting in the northeast sky after sunset on the 11th. (Midnight to dawn is prime time for meteor viewing.)
