American Meteor Society has gotten several videos of fireballs before the new meteor shower

[bananas]

A meteor outburst is predicted for Friday night, getting fireballs so soon is a good sign.

http://www.amsmeteors.org/2014/05/meteor-activity-outlook-for-may-17-23-2014/

Meteor Activity Outlook for May 17-23, 2014
By Robert Lunsford,
17 May 2014

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Special Note: Recent observations indicate that members of the Camelopardalids may be appearing before their predicted outburst on May 24th. There have been several videos of fireballs posted that display a radiant and velocity similar to what would be expected of Camelopardlid meteors. These meteors are best seen during the late evening hours before moonrise. They may appear in any portion of the sky but would all track back to a point in the obscure constellation of Camelopardalis. The radiant point lies approximately 10 degrees from the North Star, also known as Polaris. This area lies just above Polaris at sunset and slowly rotates downward to the left of Polaris as the night progresses. Your best chance of seeing any activity would be to simply face northward once it becomes totally dark. Unfortunately observers south of the equator cannot witness much activity from this radiant as it lies either very low in the northern sky or below the horizon. Since evening meteor activity this time of year is normally low, any slow moving meteors have a good chance of belonging to this display. Do not confuse meteors with satellites, which are numerous this time of night. The easiest way to tell the difference is that meteors will last only a matter of seconds while satellites are usually visible for over a minute and appear like moving stars.

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[WhiteTara]

1. Thanks for the heads up. Now if the weather will

cooperate.

[2naSalit]

2. Yeah.

The norm here is that if there's a meteor shower or aurora or something cool to see in the sky, we'll be having clouds.

I hope to catch some of this as it appears to be happening over a rather long period of time... and since it isn't freezing at night lately, maybe I can venture out with my camera!

[WhiteTara]

3. I thought it was personal against me

but I see that this affects others in the same way. I have missed more meteor showers than I seen because of cloud cover.

[2naSalit]

4. It's not personal

but it seems to be a by product of staying in the same place. I once upon a time was a professional driver, all over the US for nearly two decades, and the one thing that I think I miss the most is being able to watch the sky all night long. Back then I saw amazing meteors, auroras, night-time lightning in the distance while driving under bright stars... and fireflies whizzing by, so numerous they looked like streaks of light covering endless fields... mountains appearing and disappearing under a full moon...

I do miss being able to watch the sky.

[WhiteTara]

5. Night driving is sometimes very

awesome indeed.

[AceAcme]

6. Bodacious