It was hailed as the "meteor storm on the century" by one source. Others said it was possible that this new meteor shower could produce as many as 1000 meteors per hour. That was worth waking up for.
Only it wasn't.
I set my alarm for 12:50 AM (05/31) so I'd be sure to be outside by 1 AM. The peak was even predicted for 1:04 AM.
I was out there, eyes adjusted, enjoying the pleasant night air and a nice canopy of stars in the clear sky. I waited. And I waited. And I waited. What I saw was nothing. Not a single shooting start in the twenty minutes I stood there.
Late afternoon the day before I set up a security cam on a stool and aimed it to where Arcturus would be at 1 AM. The radiant point was supposed to be just to the red giant's right.
Here was what the camera saw while it was still daylight:
The meteor shower was supposed to be the result of a fragmented comet - 73P/Schwassmann - Wachmann 3. the radiant point slowly moving from Hercules to Bootes.
To be fair, there was plenty of warning that this meteor shower would be "all or nothing".
I've only begun watching the video that the Wyze recorded. Oddly, in the first minute after 1 AM, the camera recorded a slow moving meteor at exactly the predicted position. I was standing there and did not see it. Blame my failing eyesight. Or maybe I blinked,
In this video, you'll begin by seeing a commercial jet moving to the right (west). Later you'll see the single flash of a firefly on the left side of the screen. The meteor will be in the upper left at the 24 second mark (clock lower right).
Here's a freeze frame of the meteor at its brightest:
I kept the two hours from 1 AM to 3 AM for review. I'm sure I'll find other meteors on some of the frames. But it was hardly a "storm" and really wasn't worth the while going out.
In fact, after reviewing the first ten minutes after 1 AM, I counted just four meteors (00:24, 02:11, 03:26 and 08:26.
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