Perseids meteor shower TONIGHT (Aug 12)

A view to the north-east (look to the right of the Big Dipper and you'll be close enough)

CBCnews wrote:"We're talking about stones that are the size of grapefruits to basketballs that produce a super-bright meteor." They may even be accompanied by a smoke trail or sonic boom, he added.

The CBC quote seems too much but I'm planning to be out there from about midnight to two. Hopefully the clouds accommodate me.

2:36am : Spent the last two hours star-gazing. Every time I star-gaze I always wonder why I don't do it more often - it is almost a state-dependent memory, hard to remember what it is like from the outside. If you stare at the night sky long enough it takes on a three-dimensional quality.

The NE glare from Sudbury dimmed Perseus, but the meteors are everywhere in the sky but their source, if I sketched every streak the majority would have led back to the NE. The sky was lively. The range was:

1) regular quick white streak
3) prolonged white streak
3) looks like a white firework flare
4) white firework bright enough to trigger a small squint  
5) two-stage firework (re-flares as burning up)

The wildlife seemed to re-act. The sole #5 sighting caused something to create a big splash down at the shire and smaller numbers seemed to cause thing to jump or chirp.

Also Capella is a crazy star, coming up from the horizon it was twinkling red and yellow. It is a binary pair of old giant stars, at the dawn of homo sapiens (150kya) Capella was the brightest star in the sky.

TL;DR If you are planning to try to see the Peresid shower look everywhere but Perseus

Day Two: Perseus was angry tonight, silent lightening lit-up the NE horizon for an hour, right beneath the constellation. The sky was largely clear but the brightest flashes would illuminate beautiful snap-shots of the clouds at the horizon and any drifting overhead. Even when I cupped my ears I could not hear any thunder, it was a thunderstorm behind gauze.

One meteor caught my attention, it was not as big as the night before but it was right overhead and it looked like it was a computer graphic: its' trail was a thick square white line, the head was a ball with three shades: white/umber/shadow.

An hour of mute lightening, Perseid showers, a chorus of crickets, warm August night air.

10:30 - The night sky is damp - after an afternoon rainstorm that had left me soaked with a ripped umbrella and rain boots full of water, it also left the driveway scarred with thick rivulets and puddles. Looking at Britt Radar we were only at the edge of that atmospheric beast. Thunderstorms rolled by all day, driving raining in front of it, standing at the point I saw the single line of a bolt strike across the lake. Ice pellets the size and shape of teeth bounced through my ripped umbrella as I watched. Cricket spent the day in clenched terror, Hershey slept.

Now, the sky is clear but smudged with dampness. After midnight I'll head out/

2:53 - After the chaotic energy of today and the previous nights the starry field is placid. Trees drip, one cricket sings, a small mammal express a minute of verbal annoyance, Slurry murmurs as he wanders by.

One small streak in the NE after 45 minutes of watching. Instead I'm ponder the rising Pleiades with anxiousness, for the dainty Pleiades are chased by Taurus and Orion the Winter-Giant. Below a bright star blinks through a minute hole in the forest, it is likely a star in Orion - he is winking at me.

But the night is too warmly and such thoughts quickly melt. The storm has driven west hot days will follow in its wake. On such nights our souls are already outside, we have to go out to be with them.