St. Lawrence's Tears A Show of Lights

To all my friends that know how I love the night skies and what wonderful and awesome things that happen up there that most everyone takes for granted.
Between 1:30 am and 6 am Tuesday morning there will be a wonderful Meteor shower in the shies above us.

I have heard this will be the best time to see the awesome works of mother nature. You won’t even need those binoculars to see this.

All you will need is a lawn chair or a blanket. Being where I live there isn’t many city lights so it should be wonderful. However those of you that live where there are so many city lights try and find a dark space to watch them.
Look towards the northeast sky for the show. If you have a special person share it with them. There is nothing like watching a wonderful show like this to share and make some wonderful memories with.

This meteor shower is called Perseid meteor shower. It’s an annual occurrence when the Earth’s rotation takes us through the field of comet debris.
Specks of dust from the Swift-Tuttle Comet will pelt the Earth’s atmosphere at 132,000 mph. This will cause neon-looking light streaks which we know as meteors. Because these streaks will be visible near the constellation Perseus the event is called “The Perseid Meteor Shower”.

So if the weather is great this should be a very awesome show this year.

History of this meteor shower:
The historians tell us that the Romans martyred a Christian deacon named Laurentius in August the year 258 AD by cooking him alive on a outdoor iron stove called a gridiron.

It was during this torture that Laurentius was to have cried out in anguish and pain. After he died his family and few friends that remained there prepared to carry his body away. As they carried the body they noticed a number of bright streaks falling through the sky.

They took this as a miracle and believed that the bright streaks were the fiery tears of Laurentius falling from the heavens.
For centuries after that August night, people all over the world have continued to marvel at the sight of this wonderful event. (St. Lawrence’s Tears)


Comet Swift-Tuttle- Made it’s most recent appearance nearly a dozen years ago in December of 1992. It’s orbit is what they call highly elongated. Taking roughly 130 years to make one trip around the Sun.

For several years before and after it’s 1992 return, the Perseids were a far more prolific shower. Appearing to produce brief outburst of as many as several hundred meteors per hour.

Many of which were dazzlingly bright and spectacular. The most likely reason was that the Perseids parent comet was itself passing through the inner solar system and that the streams of Perseid meteoroids in the comet’s vicinity were larger and more thickly clumped together.

However in recent years with the comet now far back out in space Perseid activity has apparently returned to normal.
However two well known meteor astronomers suggest that the 2004 Perseid’s may yet provide some surprises.

It is believed that this year the Earth will pass through a trail of debris shed by Comet Swift-Tuttle. The closest that the Earth will come to the center of this debris trail will be around 123,000 miles.

The closest approach should be 4:50 ET and could last about 40 minutes or so favoring observers in Eastern Europe, the eastern part of North Africa eastward to central Russia.


Well I hope you my friends enjoy this wonderful and awesome show of lights. This isn’t something that can be bought or sold.
It’s a gift from nature.
So share this gift with someone you love and share the fire in the skies……..

Sorry I broke away from my other stories but I just wanted to share this with all of you.
XOXO