There Are Plenty of Meteor Showers in the Sky...

So you thought the Camelopardalid was the one, and it just didn't work out.  Well, the good news is that, like people on the earth, there are still plenty of meteor showers to be seen in the sky.  Whether or not there are still plenty of fish in the sea is a topic for another discussion on a different day.

One that's coming up is the Perseid meteor shower, which will peak on the 12th of August.  We'll have a gibbous moon, so the viewing might be obscured by moonlight, but they usually yield about 100 meteors per hour, give or take a few.  You may want to give them a try at the beginning of August, when you don't have to fight with the moon to see them.  You won't see as many, but you might have a better chance at seeing good ones.  I didn't catch the meteor shower last year because if my brain remembers correctly, there was too much cloud cover to see anything.  But two years prior, they were really good!  Here's a shot of the Perseids:

One that seems to be hit-and-miss is the Leonid meteor shower, which will peak on the night of the 16th/morning of the 17th of November.  Usually, we only see about 10-20 per hour, but it seems that this year they are expecting about 30-300 meteors per hour.  We'll have a waning crescent moon, so unless there is cloud cover (or unless you have too much light pollution), then viewing conditions should be great.  Just load up on the hot chocolate and get some Hot Hands!

The last potentially good one this year will be the Geminid shower, which peaks on the 13/14th of December and can yield over 120 per hour.  Talk about cold!  But if you're brave enough, these meteor showers are slow and bright.  So by the time you manage to twist your frozen neck around to look at the one to your side, you'll probably still manage to get a good look before it fizzles out.

Here's a pretty picture for ya:

And remember -- colds are caused by viruses, so you probably won't die if you stay outside looking at stars in the freezing cold night.  Good luck!

These were only the higher-yielding showers.  There are several others that you can check out, as well.  I've seen meteors with the Draconids, Orionids, and Taurids before as well, and they are still to come this year.  Earthsky has a great guide with dates and descriptions of all the meteor showers:

http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earthskys-meteor-shower-guide

Also, Meteorwatch has a table for a quick reference to keep track of future meteor showers.  Bookmark it for later!

http://www.meteorwatch.org/meteor-info/meteor-showers-2014/