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Spectacular shooting stars show set for Aug. 11-12

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Make plans to stay up late Aug. 11 or set the alarm early for Aug. 12  to see a cosmic display of “shooting stars” light up the night sky.

Known for its fast and bright meteors, the annual Perseid meteor shower is anticipated to be one of the best potential meteor viewing opportunities this year, according to NASA.

The Perseids show up every year in August when Earth ventures through trails of debris left behind by an ancient comet.

This year, Earth may be in for a closer encounter than usual with the comet trails that result in meteor shower, setting the stage for a spectacular display.

“Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of Aug. 11-12,” said Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama. “Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour.”

An outburst is a meteor shower with more meteors than usual.

The last Perseid outburst occurred in 2009.

Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years. Each swing through the inner solar system can leave trillions of small particles in its wake.

When Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle’s debris, specks of comet-stuff hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. These meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus.

Most years, Earth might graze the edge of Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream, where there’s less activity. Occasionally, though, Jupiter’s gravity tugs the huge network of dust trails closer, and Earth plows through closer to the middle, where there’s more material.

This may be one of those years. Experts at NASA and elsewhere agree that three or more streams are on a collision course with Earth.

“Here’s something to think about. The meteors you’ll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago,” said Cooke. “And they’ve traveled billions of miles before their kamikaze run into Earth’s atmosphere.”

How to Watch the Perseids

The best way to see the Perseids is to go outside between midnight and dawn on the morning of Aug. 12.

Allow about 45 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark.

Lie on your back and look straight up.

Increased activity may also be seen on Aug. 12-13.

On the web

For stargazers experiencing cloudy or light-polluted skies, a live broadcast of the Perseid meteor shower will be available via Ustream overnight on Aug. 11-12 and Aug. 12-13, beginning at 10 p.m. EDT.

Views & Opinions

‘Season of Light’ goes dark

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I usually write something frothy around the holidays, but the terrible events in Beirut and Paris and now in a women’s clinic in Colorado have turned the so-called “season of light” into something dark and foreboding.

Contributing to the toxic atmosphere have been comments from politicians that incite violence, scapegoat refugees and spread prejudice and xenophobia. That includes Carly Fiorina’s deliberate, vicious lies about Planned Parenthood; Ben Carson’s reference to Syrian refugees as “dogs” from whom we have to remove the “rabid” element; and Donald Trump’s scurrilous description of Mexicans as criminals and rapists.

We are right to be concerned about the growing threat from ISIS, but we should be equally concerned about the Taliban-like rantings of our own political leaders. Attacking our government as incapable of screening refugees (when in fact multiple agencies spend up to two years vetting individuals) and characterizing desperate victims fleeing ISIS terror as would-be terrorists is utterly counterproductive.

We have demonized refugees and immigrants during many crises in the past and have always come to regret our behavior. 

In the 1930s and 1940s we shut the door to Jews fleeing Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. This was due to a prevailing anti-Semitism among the public (registered in many polls) and to the blatant anti-Semitic views of administrators in our State Department and Visa Division. Memos to President Franklin Roosevelt also cited fear of “penetration of German agents” as rationale for keeping Jews out.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt signed an executive order to intern Japanese-Americans, most of them U.S. citizens. More than 120,000 people were deprived of due process, shorn of their goods and property and imprisoned in isolated camps patrolled by armed guards. The census bureau provided the demographic data used to locate and lock up these innocent people.

While their families suffered in camps, thousands of Japanese-Americans won distinction fighting against the Nazis in the 442nd Infantry Regiment. Of the 14,000 men who served, 9,486 received Purple Hearts, 560 won Silver Stars for valor and 21 won our highest military award, the Medal of Honor.

Today, many Mexicans and other Latinos new to the United States join the Armed Forces as a means to earn citizenship. The people demeaned by Donald Trump are actually playing an outsize role in the defense of our country.

As for Planned Parenthood, in the past 38 years, 10 doctors, clinic personnel or patients have been assassinated. Other acts of violence include: 26 attempted murders; 42 bombings; 182 arson attacks; 199 assaults; 1,507 incidents of vandalism; 80 acid attacks; and 983 death threats or stalking incidents. 

Women who go to Planned Parenthood clinics for health services and birth control are routinely harassed by screaming crowds of anti-abortion zealots. In this context it is a travesty that the media fails to identify the latest attack as an act of domestic terrorism. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did the right thing by ordering state police to protect Planned Parenthood clinics in that state. 

While we deplore the misogynist cruelty of ISIS and the Taliban abroad, we must fight the growing terrorism against women here at home.

For end-of-year charitable donations, I recommend giving to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin at www.ppwi.org and the United Nations Refugee agency at www.unhcr.org. Your donations will support critical services and make an important political statement in these times of domestic and international terrorism.

Screen

Unauthorized “Saint Laurent” shows YSL’s dark side

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His surviving gay lover Pierre Berge didn’t want this film to see the light of day.

But over the weekend, the controversial, no-holds-barred story of one of the 20th-century’s greatest fashion designers, Yves Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, screened in competition at Cannes.

The two-and-a-half hour feature examines how the late, great couturier’s life was torn apart by casual sex and drugs and depicts his charged erotic relationship with a third man, Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1983.

It’s little wonder the movie ruffled 83-year-old Berge’s feathers.

Director Bertrand Bonello’s “Saint Laurent” is a dark and sexually explicit movie, featuring Gaspard Ulliel, who lost weight and bared all to play the title role, and Louis Garrel in the role of Jacques.

It’s the second feature film on the legendary designer with the dark rimmed spectacles in less than six months. Unlike the first authorized film by Jalil Lespert, the Bonello project was publicly opposed Saint Laurent’s surviving life and business partner, Berge.

Scenes of full nudity, drug use and references to hard sexual practices litter the film, spliced with contrasting scenes of the precision of the fashion atelier.

The producer says the film was made not to attack Berge but to represent the truth behind the softly-spoken creator of the “Le Smoking,” who remains one of fashion world’s most enigmatic figures.

“This film was never intended to be against him (Berge),” said the film producer Eric Altmayer. “Our ambition since the beginning was to make a film simply on Saint Laurent. The fact there was this second film liberated us from the constraints of a traditional biopic, to go deeper into the truth.”

Almost peripheral in the movie are references to Saint Laurent’s artistic impact as one of the most mold-breaking designers of the 20th century, a man who irreversibly liberated women’s fashion during the 1960s sexual revolution.

Instead the designer is seen near death, frail, undignified and ravaged by pill abuse.

In one of the strongest scenes, his beloved French Bulldog, Moujik, dies after munching though the myriad pills that have been scattered on the designer’s floor as he passes out.

The director was refused rights to use YSL clothing in the filming. But during the press conference, the producer said being shunned by the establishment can spur creativity.

“We had access to nothing, nothing at all not even a shirt, so everything you see in the film was recreated,” said Altmayer. “Fantastic work was done.”