Expert: Steven LJ Russo - 8/12/2009

Question
Having heard (again) of Perseid meteor shower to be seen in some parts (too cloudy here in the Vancouver B.C. area) I was again reminded of a meteor shower similar to the one you - Steve - saw in August of 1971. I was back-packing through Europe and to celebrate my last night in Ios, a beautiful Greek island, I stayed up all night long just gazing at the stars.  I was alone and at the top of the island, reclilned in a deck chair.  All the tourists and natives alike had gone to bed so it must have been well after midnight. I believe there was little or no moonlight, for the stars were very bright. I witnessed, all night long, many "shooting stars" as I think they were called back then. They put on a mind-blowing show that I will never forget. I suspect that the show was augmented by some ergot of rye extract that someone may have slipped into my water ;) Perhaps the impact of that evening's performance was also due to the fact that I had not anticipated seeing any meteor showers at all!  Could that have been the same "show" that you (Steve Russo again) witnessed? And was it the same Perseid shower?

Answer
It could have been the same shower, but the shower could look different in different places.  For example, if the shower has its peek at lets say 5 AM NY Time, that means that in another part of the world, when it was visible, it could have been past its peek.

So a great shower to some could be a just average to others.

Plus or minus any liquid refreshment :)

Steve