I was wondering if there were other Johnson County families sitting or lying in the dark of the night, last Sunday night.
We remembered about 10 p.m. that the Perseid Meteor Shower was to be in peak performance, so we turned off all our lights and headed toward the backyard near the neighbor’s cow field. Phoebe and Aly were spotting the meteors seemingly every time I adjusted my lawn chair or blinked.
I watched and watched.
From the dark I would hear the excitement in Phoebe’s voice: “There’s one — it was low in the sky just south of our garage, toward Mars.”
I shut my eyes for a few moments, so they could readjust to the dark. Maybe I just wasn’t focusing intently enough.
“Oooh, did you see that one — it was really bright?” Aly chimed in a few minutes later.
This went on for 30 minutes, and I soon began to feel like the fisherman in the boat when everyone is hauling in walleye, but I’m not getting a bite.
I began to take notice of how the sounds were getting increasingly louder. Listening to the soundtrack of summer, the crickets and katydids rhythmic mating chirps from the top of the trees echoed back and forth on this hot muggy night.
Looking around, I began to wonder where all the light pollution in the distance was coming from.
After an hour I decided that while I was slowly scanning the sky for particles of the dust cloud left by comet 109P Swift-Tuttle, I would recall what I read in the American Meteor Society watch suggestions:
The more stars you see, the more meteors will also be visible.
No matter the time of night, Perseid meteors can be seen in all portions of the sky.
No matter which direction you look, it is advisable to aim your center of view about half-way up in the sky. Don’t look straight up as more activity is visible at lower elevations
Some observers like to view toward the constellation Perseus and the radiant. This way they can see Perseid meteors travel in all directions.
After 90 minutes, I spotted a beauty of a meteor — and I wondered how many other neighbors saw the same meteor.
