Natural fireworks! Sort of.

“Don’t you know that you are a shoot-ing star?”  It’s meteors!  And not the kind that are heading straight toward Earth, Armageddon style.  (Oh wait, that was an asteroid — never mind.)  This is the Perseids meteor shower and it’s going on right now!  But scientists say that it will reach its peak Monday night into Tuesday morning.

The problem is, you may have to travel to see it really well.  According to one map I saw from Accuweather, the closest “good” viewing area is southern Illinois.  Most of Illinois is “fair” and the area along the north (where we live) is marked as “poor”.

But the weird part is, I saw another map with the same format that showed the whole area starting with the northeast corner of the state as being “good”.  So I’m a little confused.  Not only that, but clouds can get in the way, wherever you are.  And they say it’s best to get away from the city lights, just like they always told us at the Planetarium.

But if conditions are right, Monday night about 100 meteors an hour should be visible streaking across the sky.  That’s a lot of shooting stars to wish upon.