Wish upon a Star

I know I didn't take this picture, but I thought it was really cool.  I got up this morning at about 3 am to look for "shooting stars" or part of the Perseid meteor shower.  I watched from the family room and saw 2 in about  a 5 minute period.  I tried to get some pictures with my camera but it didn't turn out too well.  The best time to see the meteor shower is in the middle of the night tonight, however.  You can start looking about 10pm, but the peak time will be about 2am,

So, where do the "shooting stars" come from?

"They are remnants of the Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last visited the inner solar system in 1992. Every August, like clockwork, our planet Earth cuts through the "river of rubble" left behind along the orbit of the comet.

And yet, while comets are composed chiefly of frozen gas, meteors are very flimsy. They're material that has flaked off comets and they're similar in consistency to cigar ash; they litter up our solar system. Most are scarcely larger than pebbles or sand grains. 
In the case of the Perseids, they come crashing into Earth's atmosphere at estimated speeds as high as 37 miles per second (60 km/s), or 133,000 mph (214,000 km/h). These tiny visitors from the cold, vast voids of stellar space, have been orbiting in the solar system for perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years, but cannot survive the shock of entry, and end up streaking across the sky in a brief, blazing finale lasting but a few seconds.
Their kinectic energy is used up in such processes as the production of light, heat and ionization. Thus, such a tiny particle bursts into incandescence from friction, producing the shooting star effect and can be seen from more than 100-miles away. But it's really the light energy it develops, not the particle itself that we see."
(from The Christian Science Monitor website)


I just like to watch them.  I remember last year watching them the night before Luke & Layne were born.  I went and sat up above the sandbox by the shed and watched them there.  This year will be better because there will not be as much moonlight and I plan to sleep outside at Kendra's with Kimball & Koria.  They will have a great view I think.  Good luck to anyone else interested in watching them tonight!