Not a good night for meteors
The Perseid meteor shower is tonight, and the moon rises late and is only a sliver anyway. But unfortunately, there is a bit of a haze tonight. It not only mutes the light of the meteors themselves, it reflects back a significant amount of the city lights nearby. And when the moon rises (pretty soon now), the light from it will also be scattered over a good chunk of the sky.
I had a nice, comfortable air mattress and spent about an hour looking up. I saw only one meteor in that time. This is a far cry from the "one or two per minute" that is supposed to happen. But of course, with the haze I can only see the brightest ones.
"How Hazy Is It?", you may ask. Right now there are only 3 stars in the sky that are bright enough to be seen steadily. There's maybe a dozen more that can be seen more than half the time. That's pretty poor for this area, even as close to the city lights as I am.
The meteor shower is supposed to peak in about 2-3 hours (3AM-4AM), but unless the sky shows signs of clearing it isn't going to be worth staying up for it.
I had a nice, comfortable air mattress and spent about an hour looking up. I saw only one meteor in that time. This is a far cry from the "one or two per minute" that is supposed to happen. But of course, with the haze I can only see the brightest ones.
"How Hazy Is It?", you may ask. Right now there are only 3 stars in the sky that are bright enough to be seen steadily. There's maybe a dozen more that can be seen more than half the time. That's pretty poor for this area, even as close to the city lights as I am.
The meteor shower is supposed to peak in about 2-3 hours (3AM-4AM), but unless the sky shows signs of clearing it isn't going to be worth staying up for it.