Perseids Rained Out

One of my very favorite memories while spending summers with my dad in Northern California when I was younger is of going out to see the Perseid meteor shower every year in mid-August. We would go out to the levy at about midnight, taking big reclining lawn chairs and blankets. The object was to lay back as much as possible, so that we could see the entire sky. We'd sit in the quiet for a few hours watching the meteors stream down--every once in awhile ohhing and ahhing over a particularly big one.

So far my attempts to see the Perseids in Kansas have been completely thwarted (mostly by sleep), so this year I decided to make a really good effort to get out to see them. To that end, Thursday night at midnight Blaine and I drove out to the dam at Clinton Lake with blanket in tow. The sky was looking a little overcast as we left our house, and by the time we got to the lake it was downright cloudy. Realizing that there wasn't going to be much to see, we headed home pretty quickly.

We thought we'd try again last night, but at about five in the afternoon a nice Kansas thunderstorm blew up and continued all night. So, once again, no perseids this year.

I'm consoling myself with these beautiful pictures on NASA's website (click on "gallery").