Meteor showers - another sight to see in Color County.

My wife and I set the alarm for 2 am and took snacks and coffee up on our roof for the show last night. And we weren’t disappointed! Astronomy sites predicted that we might see as many as 50-80 meteors per hour. There were at least that many. If you read this today (August 12) then you have one more night of peak activity before they start to decline again until next year.

The annual Perseid meteor shower is one of several that you can see in the clear desert air better than nearly any other place on Earth.

According to Wikipedia:

“The Perseids (pronounced /’p?si??dz/ pûr’se-idz) is a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so called because the point they appear to come from, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus.”

When we lived in a city, we tried several times to check out the Perseids, the Leonids (November 17/18) and other astral shows. But the air was never clear enough. The city lights drowned out the stars. It was hard to even see the Milky Way in the city.

I’ll bet there are a lot of city kids who don’t even know the Milky Way is up there. But in Color Country, we sometimes stay up late just to see the stars that are always there.

If you don’t live in Color Country but you’re thinking of coming this way, plan on finding a place where you can take in the Color Country fireworks show. Weather permitting, it’s on every night!