Make sure May 24, 2014 is circled on your skywatching calendars

Set your alarm clocks on May 23 and 24.........If any of you are interested (obsessed like myself?) the newly discovered shower from comet 209P/LINEAR is coming soon. In a few days SOON. NASA and their computer models predict that, this year, we may encounter the debris of every one of this comet’s last two dozen passes all at once on the morning of May 24,  with no bright moon in the sky hindering it!  The debris that will strike our upper atmosphere on Saturday will not be from this year's pass. Instead, it is calculated that the comet shed all this debris as long ago as the late 1700s and early 1800s. What is truly exciting about this particular comet is that the dust it left behind in previous years will be impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. Remember - early on the morning of Saturday, May 24th (and very late Friday night on the West Coast). It probably won't last more than an hour or two but its timing  favors ALL of North America. The peak will be between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, about midnight Pacific Daylight Time, 1 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, or 2 a.m. Central Daylight Time. Hopefully that gives most of you the approximate time if you want to try to view this event. 

If predictions are right, the Northern United States are ideally situated to see 100 to 400 meteors per hour (which is called a meteor outburst), and possibly many more, 1000 per hour (a meteor storm such as I witnessed in November 1966). Front row seats! NASA predicts the best time to watch the meteor shower is Saturday, May 24, from midnight to dawn.  The Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy, is placing the likelihood closer to 80 per hour. Comets are notoriously unpredictable but whoever is correct, I don't care, I will be out there looking low in the north beneath the North Star. This will be an historic event - seeing a brand new meteor shower. The radiant of the meteor shower is just south of Polaris (the ‘North Star’) in the constellation of Ursa Minor — the "Little Bear". To simplify where to look - Ursa Minor is the Little Dipper and the star at the end of the Little Dipper handle is Polaris, the North Star. 

Grab a reclining lawn chair, a blanket and enjoy the show

When I was 14 years old  the November 1966 Leonid meteor storm covered our western Washington sky. Not meteor showers - a meteor STORM. This was only 4 years after the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The World's Fair's theme had been our future in space, our space travel, etc.  My Dad and I would often go out and watch the stars, sharing his telescope -  discussing strange phenomena, UFOs, and other offbeat 'probable' topics.  This night my Dad had worked the nightshift, got home around 11:30 p.m. As usual he would read the newspaper when he got home and then go to bed. He woke me up about 1 or 2 in the morning and literally dragged me outside onto the front lawn. What we saw was amazing. There were shooting stars everywhere we looked, coming from every direction. Non stop meteors. Tens of thousands. Fireballs also. They filled the sky! They were literally raining down on us. I swear there was not one area of the sky that was dark - it was completely filled with falling meteors. It had been determined (later) that those meteors were falling at 40-50 per second (144,000 per hour)! My Dad and I (and our dog Shep) spent about 20 minutes out there totally mesmerized by the experience (It was a short duration meteor storm). At 14 years old I thought the world was coming to an end. We both would instinctively shield our eyes, even though we had our heads looking straight up  It was an experience I will never forget. It was frightening yet I was equally awestruck.    My Dad had his arm around me and my dog Shep was lying next to me. Shep was very nervous. We thought he was expecting thunder-like noises because to him it probably looked like lightening strikes, without the noise of course. He was deathly afraid of thunder.  All 3 of weathered the cold Washington State air lying on the wet grass to witness this once in a lifetime event. With all of the excitement my Dad never even grabbed a blanket before heading out. Neither of us would abandon this spectacular event to run inside to get one. Not me, for sure - I wasn't convinced that one of those falling meteors wasn't going to obliterate me if I moved. Nope, I just stayed right there. Seriously I thought something bad was going to be the finale - like me, my Dad and our dog dissipating - into nothing. Hey, I was 14. We were so lucky to have witnessed this - it was a "clear" western Washington sky which in itself was a miracle. How often does that happen? Not often in Washington State, that's for sure.

The 66' Leonids - Something like this but even more strong

It is very rare for a person to actually witness a meteor storm because they certainly are not common. My friend Noreen witnessed the 1946 Draconids storm which produced several thousand meteors within an hour. I witnessed the 1966 Leonid storm which was even more stronger. Together we plan on witnessing this 'possible' new meteor storm together - in my open meadow unobstructed back yard. All are welcome to join us. If it doesn't turn out to be a meteor 'storm', it surely will still be an awesome meteor shower - because it is NEW and never seen before. Worth setting an alarm clock for, right? If predictions are wrong, which I don't think they will be - well, whatever, I will just add that to my ever growing list of disappointments. 

Not ending this blog with my normal Obama discontent - this time is Poo-Poo Putin's turn.  Putin's actions violates international law and international treaties Russia has signed before. Here is what I see. It’s a game of godless pinko commie bastard (aka: Russian) roulette with a guy who is just f***ing unstable and is never going to play by the rules. He's a thug. He's a  Bolshevik, Leninist, Leninite, Maoist, Marxist, Stalinist all rolled into one.  Soon we will see the Cossak hats, the red star, CCCP and the hammer and sickle everywhere we look.  Take this sonofabitch out!

P.S. If any of you witness this meteor event let me know what you saw!