It was touted as the epic sky event to watch out for, but Saturday's anticipated meteor shower left thousands of North Americans dismayed for not showing up on its scheduled late primetime appearance.

Instead, skywatchers turned to the online universe to "watch" one another's tweets about the meteor shower.  By 3:15 a.m. eastern, halfway into the supposed peak hours of the shower, Twitter was raining complaints and sarcastic jabs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

Like Us on Facebook

"NASA is just like the cable company. Give us a 2-hour window and then leave us hanging," tweeted Michael Collins @GaSportsCraze.

"Can NASA just admit they miscalculated the #meteorshower so we can go to bed and see a neck masseuse?," tweeted Enrique Arana @SpinninDJE.

Others found humor in their own disappointment, and tweeter Sebastian A. offered some tips on how to spot the meteor shower:

"Spin around really fast for 1 minute; fall to the ground face up; see the #meteorshower," he tweeted.

NASA Marshall News had set up a live feed of the sky event on UStream, embedded it on Twitter, and let it remain live until sunrise but decided to wrap up its tweet session as early as 3:00 a.m.

Some, however, reported seeing one to six shooting stars, but not in the hundreds as scientists had projected.

NASA astronomers had announced that around 200 meteors per hour could appear in the pre-dawn sky over North America beginning at 10:30 p.m. Friday until 7:00 a.m Saturday, peaking from 2:00-4:00 a.m.

They said the meteor showers, called Camelopardalids, are dust trails from comet 209P-LINEAR which have accumulated for hundreds of years at a point in space where the Earth was passing through at this time.  The comet only orbits the Earth every five years.

Scientists said tonight could be the first and last opportunity to see the "spectacular stream" because the comet that sheds off the dust trails could have its orbit altered by the gravitational pull of the largest planet, Jupiter.

NASA's own excitement about the May 2014 meteor shower rubbed off on thousands of North Americans who had looked forward to kicking off their Memorial Day weekend celebrations by going stargazing.

TagsMeteor Shower 2014, Camelopardalids