HikeArizona.COM

Forecasts of 100 to 1000 meteors per hour Friday/Saturday May 23-24.

If it's over 120, it would be the best meteor shower of the year. If it gets to 500, it'll be the best most of us will see in our lifetimes.

You might want to find a spot with a dark sky and stay up late.

Everything depends on what happened in the 1800s during Comet 209P/LINEAR’s close encounter with the sun. Nobody knows what happened.

It may not make “storm” status, but scientists who have studied it say the debris field that earth passes through next week contains a lot of course material. That means the number of meteors it produces may not break 1,000/hr, but the ones it does produce will be bright and colorful.

http://www.commdiginews.com/environment ... -24-17670/

more reading:
http://earthsky.org/space/comet-209p-li ... m-may-2014

I'll go to work tired on Saturday for that.

This is cool - thanks Chums!!

Drove out to Salome Road and waited from midnight to 1am and only saw two during the last 15 minutes. I don't know if it kicked off at 1:10am, but I would call this one a dud. It was worth a shot!

Woke up at 2:15am and watched the sky for 45 minutes - Nada. Definately a dud.

Now do I get to say, "I told you so!" ??

On any summer night in Arizona, let's say you are rafting Grand Canyon so you sleep under the stars for 18 nights in a row, you will see plenty of shooting stars. In my experience, going out in the COLD to watch a specific meteor shower is a bit like WATCHING PAINT DRY and being very cold while you're at it. You could have stayed home and watched golf on TV, and been a lot more comfortable.

Got out of the city lights east of Tucson and watched for over an hour. Saw one good one around 1130 that fell in the eastern sky ( a slow mover that broke in two at the end), otherwise nothing. Verdict: dud show. Typical.

rwstorm wrote:Got out of the city lights east of Tucson and watched for over an hour. Saw one good one around 1130 that fell in the eastern sky ( a slow mover that broke in two at the end), otherwise nothing. Verdict: dud show. Typical.

See what I mean?

@azbackpackr
I was going to throw in how I thought watching paint dry was more exciting, but you covered that well.

After Perseids last year, I'll give most showers a chance. I stopped counting after a hundred that night.
It was peaceful to look at the stars in the middle of the desert either way. Even better when I realized I could see Mars and Saturn.

Most of the regular showers are reasonably good. But I'm spoiled after seeing the incredible meteor storm in November 1966 at Fort Huachuca. (The repeat in 2000/2001 wasn't bad either). So for me the bar is set pretty high to be impressed.

In case you think I am making this up:
http://www.space.com/13613-leonid-meteo ... storm.html

Didn't spend a lot of time looking but at 9500 feet out in the pitch dark white mtns we only saw a couple. But it was worth looking. I've seen a couple of showers with 1+/minute and that's a pretty cool experience.

I do agree with Elizabeth though-- on any given night with dark skies you will see a few if you pay attention.

The " great meteor shower" definitely fell a tad short of the estimated 200+ per hour. I was in a very dark area near Harquahala and saw 3 during four hours afield. Not going to complain though, cause if I'd stayed home it would have been raining stars and then I'd be pretty unhappy. After a while with no activity my attention was diverted to the ridiculously bright Milky Way star field and spent time making a few light painting pics, which as we all know, is way better than watching golf on TV...

I thought the Milky Way was a stretch of clouds for a while. It was cloudy in Buckeye when I headed out, so that's my excuse.