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Well, get used to it because 2013 actually *is* going to be unusually active from an astronomical perspective, enough so that I got my niece a decent lower end telescope for Christmas.

There’s one more known near-Earth asteroid, then comet PANSTARRS in March, followed by the green comet Lemmon already visible in the southern hemisphere that will be visible to us in April, and then there’s the big one, comet ISON, that appears poised to be the second brightest object in the sky for a month or so, behind only to the sun, visible in broad daylight.

It will be at it’s brightest after it passes perihelion in late November, assuming it doesn’t break up from passing fairly close to the sun as comets go.

Good point and you are correct that 2013 is going to be a very interesting and active year astronomically speaking, both for scientists and people interested in such things from a scientific perspective, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was speaking to the media hype surrounding rather frequent events like shooting stars and meteor fire balls and making it seem like all of a sudden there are a lot more of them than usual when most likely, it only appears that way because the media is suddenly giving them more attention, or for that matter, blaming it on global warming (eye roll).

I am really looking forward to seeing comet ISON and am really hoping it doesn’t break up or fizzle out. Of course I'm also hoping that it doesn’t bring out the dooms day cult nuts and if it does, at best they are only mildly disappointed when the World doesn’t come to an end or that they only off themselves and not anyone else.

And kudos to you for getting your niece a telescope for Christmas. If only I had had a really cool uncle like you : )