Meteor Shower

I spent the last two nights laying on my back, on my deck, in the pitch black of night. Some of you may think Tami threw me out of the house, but you'd be wrong. Tami was out there laying right next to me. Why would we be outside late at night with no lights on? The answer is to do something most people don't take the time to do. We were watching the yearly display of the Perseid Meteor Shower. Every year about this time, the earth passes through a debris trail of a comet. This debris basically amounts to grains of sand or tiny rocks. This debris enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up before reaching the ground. These meteors (which are mistakenly called "shooting stars") put on a heavenly display that is worth watching if you stay up late enough and have some patience. Every now and then people gazing at the stars will see a random meteor. They are not all that uncommon, but you have to be looking in the right place at exactly the right moment to see them. During a meteor shower you are guaranteed seeing beautiful streaks of light across the sky. Experts say during peak times a person could see up to 50 meteors per hour. That might be true if you are in the middle of nowhere with no light pollution and happen to catch a flurry of meteoric activity. Our experience in the backyard had us seeing a meteor about once every 5 minutes or so. It was a long time to lay in the dark just to see a split second of brilliance, but I did not count it as a waste of time. Sure, I would like to have seen meteors at a faster pace, but the ones we did see were very cool! In total we probably saw a couple dozen meteors, but how often do we really get to see them? It was totally worth it!