Tau Herculids Bust

Last night there was supposedly a great meteor shower, with a peak time at 1 a.m. The astronomy folks were calling it the Herculids, and it was visible near the Big Dipper.

The reason for the shower was a broken comet, SW3. The comet fell apart in 1995 and the debris from it was supposed to be visible. Or so they hoped.

I set an alarm for 12:50 a.m. and took my camera outside. I aimed it at the Big Dipper. I got excited when I counted eight meteor streaks in a few minutes, although they seemed to be outside of the camera's eye.

It's nice outside at night, though the air was a big soupy. I wondered if there was enough haze to keep me from seeing the sky looking like it was falling to earth. That's what I was hoping for, a great show.

And I saw and heard a great show - Mother Nature at her finest hour. The trees around me danced with fireflies, each one apparently dazzling itself with its green light. Fairies flirting about the trees, I thought. The peepers at the neighbor's pond were croaking mightily, too. The air smelled of sweet drying grass from where my husband cut the hayfield yesterday, and something else I couldn't identify. Pollen?

In my peripheral vision, I watched the fairies dance to the froggies croak while I searched the sky for a heavenly display of fireworks.

By the time I came inside, I'd seen a total of 14 meteor streaks.

None of them came out on the camera.

The fireflies did, though.

The green streaks may be meteors, but I'm fairly sure they're fireflies, especially that big fat one at the top.

This is not one of my better star trail photos, either. It looks like I shook the camera at some point, since the lines are a little shaky. I've lightened the picture in effort to see everything the camera captured.

It was a disappointing photo shoot, and not the "sky falling" event I was hoping for, but something a little different.

Everyone should take the time to look at the night sky once in a while.