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(meteorobs) Perseids over Ohio - a Grim Fairy Tale



Sitting on the porch of a rented cabin with my wife, watching the dusk
sky fill with clouds,
some feathery and delicate, some swollen and ominous, I began to
experience my annual
Perseid Melancholia. Even the nocturnal chorus of katydids and
crickets, their ageless
primal song rising from the failing light, did little to brighten my
mood. Where the peak of
the Perseid meteor shower is concerned, I am batting 0 for the 90's, or
nearly so.

We, my wife and I, have not seen many starry August nights since 1992.
This last August
of, not only the 90's, but the millennium, was distressingly consistent
with it's
predecessors. Did Nostradamus augur such late-millennium August skies?

We did manage to squeeze a couple hours of starry skies out of the
morning of August 7
before clouds and moonlight sent us to bed. The 16 Perseids we saw made
for a nice
appetizer, but I feared the main course would be another serving of
clouds. It was time to
shoot the waiter.

So it was with a palpable sense of the inevitable we blew out candles
and climbed into
bed Wednesday evening (the 11th), for a nap. I optimistically regarded
the ghostly call of a
nearby whippoorwill as a good omen.

The morning of August 12 was a struggle of opposing wills - mine
against the clouds'.
During the first hour, beginning at 4:35ut (12:35 local time), I was a
Peeping Tom,
pressing my nose against the window pane of each break in the clouds to
open overhead. I
was lucky to catch the 10 meteors I did. Only 2 of these were Perseids.
Four were
Aquarids, and 1 was a magnitude -2.0 Capricornid.

When the hour was up, I spent several minutes with my journal, waxing
bitterly over yet
another Perseid Debacle in the making.

My second hour of observing lasted only 40 minutes, from 6:05 to
6:45ut. It was more of
the same: 13 meteors, 6 of which were Perseids, 2 of those glowing at
magnitude -3.0.
There was also a Kappa Cygnid in there.

The calls of distant Screech owls and Great-Horned owls did little to
assuage my
escalating depression.

The sandman, meanwhile, was beating me about the head and shoulders
with such
enthusiasm, he must have been nearly as exhausted as I. 

During the next 40 minutes of observing, beginning at 6:50ut, I counted
15 meteors, 12 of
which were Perseids. The highlight of this period was the Perseid which
flared to a retina-
damaging magnitude -6.0. Spectacular.

But the relentless cloud cover, coupled with my tussle with the
sandman, was proving to
be more than I could handle. I rolled onto my side, getting
comfortable, allowing myself to
fall into the warm maternal lap of slumber. And suddenly the clouds
filled with light.
Like a coffee stain soaking into a white shirt, a bright Perseid
streaked through the clouds,
flaring suddenly, its orange light spreading through the clouds.
Certainly Dr. Frankenstein
would have been plugging in his monster.

Suddenly rejuvenated, I found myself again attentively awaiting the
next break in the
clouds. And suddenly, unexpectedly and too-good-to-be-truedly, the sky
cleared at 8:25ut
and I was treated to another hour of dusty Milky Way, twinkling jewels
arranged in
constellations, and meteors. I counted 29 meteors, 26 of those
Perseids. Two, one at
magnitude -4.0, the other at -5.0, displayed bluish trains which
persisted for about 5
seconds each.

At the first hint of dawn I made a beeline for bed.

The next night, August 12/13, was but a temporary improvement.

My wife and I got comfortable beneath a clear sky bisected by that same
dusty Milky Way,
and began observing at 4:12ut (12:12 local time). We counted 46
meteors: 38 Perseids, 1
Kappa Cygnid, 4 Aquarids and 3 sporadics. It was out best hour of
Perseids since George
Bush was President.

During the second hour the sky dimmed from a starry limiting magnitude
of +6.5 to a
watered down +5.0. While the sky was dimming we counted 28 meteors, 24
of which
were Perseids. At the end of the hour, it seemed like a good time for a
snack.

And that was that.

While we sipped hot coffee and snacked on donuts (I'll never be accused
of being health-
conscious!), Mother Nature was white-washing the starry dome. Only a
handful of stars
were visible by the time we finished our snack.

As if to remind me, just one last time, who was in charge here, Mother
Nature woke me at
6am with a blast of thunder like the sound of Armageddon. I sat up with
a start and,
recalling that the top on the Jeep was down, I bolted as well as I
could bolt in my semi-
conscious state. Racing around the Jeep in my underwear and sleepy
eyes, lightning
exploding all about me, I was fairly certain I would be struck at any
moment. But, dammit,
the Jeep would be dry. I didn't much like the thought, I admit, of
being found clinging to
my vehicle in my underwear.......

And that, not so much in a nutshell as in a can of mixed nuts, is my
1999 Perseid meteor
shower. Now I move on to harvesting herbs, tomatoes and sunflower
seeds, counting
migrating Monarchs, sowing prairie species seeds and roasting Chicory
roots. And then
there are the Leoinds........



===
Gregg.................
Ring Leader of the Planet Ohio Nature Sites Web Ring
    - http://pages.prodigy.com/daddy
Gardens, Stars and Butterflies BB creator/moderator
    - http://wwwdot delphi.com/daddysplanet
Overseer of the Planet Ohio mail list for Ohio Nature Lovers
    - http://www.egroups.com/list/ohio-nature
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