Super cool ultimate meteor shower!!

Submitted by Prince Lover on
Calling all MGoAstronomers out there!! So I've been hearing on NPR all day about this great meteor shower the earth is suppose to witness. I was told if in eastern standard time, the best time is between 2-4 am. Well here I sit with a frothy beverage and my eyes gazing northward. I don't see anything. Am I doing something wrong or just not in a good terrestrial spot? Any way, just wondering if anybody else is/was foolish enough to stay awake long enough for this amazing event. And if anyone actually saw something.... Cheers!

Generic MGoBlogger

May 24th, 2014 at 2:51 AM ^

I've been staring at the sky for 2 hours, and I am promptly giving up... Unless I receive word in the next 10 minutes that they are visible, I'm going to sleep... Quite disappointing on such a beautiful and clear night.

slama

May 24th, 2014 at 4:12 AM ^

Two meteors in two hours. That's one per hour which is slightly less than the 400 predicted.

At least I got a stiff neck.

I am done with celestial events for the time being.

XM - Mt 1822

May 24th, 2014 at 7:25 AM ^

got up @ 0300 hrs with a promise to the family to wake them if there was anything to see.  crystal clear night and we live in a place where you can really see the milky way as the dusty-looking light cloud of innumerable stars.   so i sat there for ~ 5 minutes and saw nothing.   let the family sleep and re-bagged instead. 

rob f

May 24th, 2014 at 9:47 AM ^

as I saw 4 of them between 2:45 and 3:15.  But that can't be much different from sky-gazing on any other clear moonless night, can it? 

I'd love to have seen anything close to what some were predicting.  Much more often than not, it seems that such predicted "showers" are less than they're cracked up to be.

Best meteor shower I ever saw had to be about 35-40 years ago, and it was so spectacular that I doubt I'll ever see anything close to it again.  That meteor shower was one I knew nothing about in advance---I was just lucky, I guess.   A few of my buddies and I were visiting some cousins at their folks' cottage near Baldwin, we had done a bonfire earlier that night and the old folks had already gone to bed, when we started noticing a few shooting stars, we grabed a cooler of beer and hopped into a couple of rowboats, heading out to the middle of Little Star Lake.  Gradually the intensity of the meteor shower ramped up, we probably watched from mid-lake for well over an hour and saw several hundred.  Just awesomely awesome. 

That's the kind of event that was predicted for last night, but it instead ended up unawesomely unawesome.

Space Coyote

May 24th, 2014 at 1:32 PM ^

And I'm sorry for those that were disappointed.

But just because there was no meteor shower, I'm hoping that some of you didn't miss the other spectacle. The spectacle of an infinite night. Away from your worry; away from your electric screens and immediate forms of communication; away from instantaneous urgency reverberating and reciprocating throughout your daily life. If you didn’t see what was beyond breathtaking; if you didn’t look out beyond our atmosphere where the universe opens into a dimension of unfathomable depth; if you didn’t witness an unimaginable collection of stars greater than the immensity of grains of sand upon the beaches of Earth, and the gentle illumination of a star-swathed sky; and if you didn’t get crushed by the waves of emotion and feel suddenly small, yet suddenly special, either alone or with ones you care for and love; then you missed it. Then you did it all wrong.

We should spend more time, late at night and into the early morning, away from the cities and looking up into the sky. It has as much to tell us than a potential once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, and that shouldn't be forgotten.

\Finished waxing on poetically

gomaize11

May 24th, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^

In Kalkaska here, laid out on the dock from about 3-3:30 AM and saw maybe 10-15 or so. One was really cool and left a red streak in the sky for around 5 seconds. 

Overall the "meteor shower" was OK, nothing spectacular, so don't feel bad if you didn't stay up.

But holy crap was the Milky Way visible last night. That was way more cool than the meteors.