With the Perseids meteor showers often the highlight of even the most amateur of astronomers in August, we caught up with a north Shropshire stargazer to find out why it is so popular.

Peter Williamson, who is a freelance astronomer, lives in Whittington and has had his eyes trained on the skies for more than three decades, and has plenty of advice for anyone looking to enjoy the meteors this week.

But he is preaching one main piece of advice – patience.

“With the Perseids, you won’t see anything up close, as it were,” he said.

“A meteor is a grain of sand burning up in the atmosphere.

The best way to watch the Perseids is just with your naked eye – no telescopes, no binoculars, just sit and look as you don’t know when they’re going to happen.

If you’ve got a good eastern horizon, then sit in the garden looking at that way and you’re bound to see some with the peak producing about 60 an hour.”

Pete runs the only astronomy and music radio station at www.astroradio.earth, broadcast from Whittington with presenters all over the UK and into Spain.

But he is also charged with enduring generations to come are instilled with a love of astronomy with his work in schools.

“I look after doing education projects in schools for Cardiff University, but I am out of my own office here in Whittington,” he said.

“Those jobs involved various international telescopes from around the world and the kids can operate them from the classroom.

“I also do freelance work in schools, teaching kids about space, all over the country as well talks for differing groups.

“I also did a big talk for the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in Mansion House, in London for the moon landings anniversary – I’m basically a freelance astronomer.

“I moved up here in 1989 as my wife had managed to get a job at the Orthopaedic, and our house hunting around in the area caused us to stumble upon this one, so that’s why we’re here.

“Stargazing was a consideration at the time. Our garden is south facing and all the best objects to look at through a telescope face south.

“There were no trees blocking the view and there wasn’t as much light as we have now, which is different now.”

Pete says that since the Covid-19 enforced lockdown began in mid-March, he has seen a huge growth in astronomy from people wanting to know more about the stars.

He says there are more than enough spots to see the stars around north Shropshire in Oswestry and over to Whitchurch too, and into Wales as well.

He added: “One of the surprising things was last year when I was doing some stargazing things for Oswestry Heritage and we went up to the racecourse.

“I took some Milky Way pictures, not thinking they would be any good, but thy were absolutely fantastic. We were only just outside of the town, looking away and there’s no light at all.

“I would recommend it as one of the best places to go viewing in north Shropshire while over the border into Wales, another fantastic place is Horseshoe Pass.

“But do it before you go around the corner to the Ponderosa because that has floodlights on all night.

“We’re finding that schools are bringing us in more and more space has been taken off the curriculum, in a way, but science teachers still want it on there.

“So they’re bringing us in to enthuse the kids to take up astronomy and science.

“It’s one of our main projects, and what we’ve found – especially in lockdown – that more people have been going out and looking up because they can’t do much else.

“I did a piece of Radio Shropshire recently where we made some free pamphlets available for kids to do projects, and I had more than 3,000 applicants within a week.

“It’s amazing because you wouldn’t get that in a year but we got that in one week of lockdown.

“I’ve had a lot more interest and questions locally, and from posting picture son community groups, the amount of interest coming back is a lot more just of late.

“People want to know what they’re looking at, the interest is there and it’s gaining popularity because people like Professor Brian Cox have made it accessible.”

For more about his projects for children, including processing data from the Juno Probe, email office@peterwilliamson.co.uk