The Cypress Hills Provincial Park's dark sky preserve produced some visually stunning results recently.

The Perseids meteor shower is an annual event viewable from around the world, but areas that showcase the phenomenon best are dark sky preserves.

The events usually last from mid-July and typically continue until August 24, but the periods when the meteors are most active is from August 9 to 14.

Neil Zeller, a professional photographer, said that for the past four years he has been experiencing the shower, and the provincial park just happened to be the ideal location to view it.

Zeller said that the dark sky preserved status, as well as the fact that the skies were set to be clear at the park, made his mind up for him.

"We just camp wherever we can find space, a lot of times it's just at a little municipal campground, or just out in the country somewhere, and it just turned out that the best clear skies in all of western Canada were in the Cypress Hills region."

The experience of watching the meteors fall in such high volume is unique said Zeller.

"It's always exciting to sit in a lawn chair with a blanket around you staring up into the sky, and just watch dozens and dozens of meteors over the night," he exclaimed. "The ones that really excite you are the big fireballs that shoot all the way across the sky and explode at the end, and the colourful ones, you can actually see red or green depending on what the meteors are made of."

Zeller also said that dark sky preserves are extremely important to keep and that we are lucky that we have so many of them living in Saskatchewan.

"They're trying to protect that night sky because it is a really special place, especially for someone like me who uses it as a portal to space and the night sky."

 Zeller said that he would like to see the areas protected from light pollution increase as they are getting more and more hard to come by.