see the Perseid meteor shower

Mentioned the meteor shower to a friend and we ended up watching it in her backyard. It was just her, her three dogs, and me. Her house wasn’t far enough to escape light pollution but we were able to spot about 10 meteors. It was fun just laying on the backyard, staring up at the sky, just talking and trying to see who could spot the most meteors.

Saturday morning my wife and I drove up to the mountains to get away from the light pollution of L.A.. We put the air mattress in the bed of the pickup and were rewarded with around 10 meteors. There was a bit of light pollution because we didn’t drive quite far enough. The peak is Tuesday night, so I might have a second chance.

The peak of the Perseid meteor shower is happening soon. Its peak is at August 12 at around 4AM PST. Never actually seen a meteor shower before. Going to need to drive away from L.A.’s lights and find someplace less bright.

Since this is purely a mid-September event, I need to take this off my list until next September.

We moved here to the Bitterroot in Aug. But our entire valley was smoked out due to forest fires for the entire month of September 2007. So there was simply NO WAY that we could see the Perseid metior shower. Maybe next year if the fires cooperate.

but it was far too overcast that night to see much of anything. I did see one shooting star, though! and it was totally worth it.

can’t count this as completed, though. maybe next year!

I decided, alas, to catch up on sleep even though the weather was perfect. I spent well over a week groggy during the day from lack of sleep. Right now, this goal is my top priority. Nothing else goes well for long without that one.

As the shower is almost officially over, it’s time to mark this goal as done. Although in total I caught only two shooting stars —each one in different nights, and in no way I saw a meteor shower —, they were totally worth it, since I didn’t search for a viewing post past my backyard ;)

I want to thank everyone who joined in the team, and also the ones who couldn’t for astronomical, weather, or timing conditions. Especially, I want to thank Ru for posting a beautiful Perseid-related story and for sharing the link to the fluxtimator which was so helpful and will become quite handy for future showers.

Again, thanks everyone, and clear skies to all!

give up on this…
had stuff going on both big nights.
sigh. next year.

A friend brought me to Joshua Tree on the night of the peak to watch this, and we didn’t see a single meteor. Fortunately I was at Yosemite a couple days later and participated in an astronomy program where we saw a half dozen or so. Neither experience compared to what I remember of meteor storm watching in my youth but it was still worth it.

Wow! This was such a cool event. I went to a place called “Signal de Bougy” in Switzerland, about 30 mins drive from Geneva. No light pollution and had to take a torch to find a nice spot. So stayed from 10pm – 7am, took blankets, picnic, IPOD and player to play Pink Floyd full blast. There were 6 of us. The 3 guys gave up around midnight as we hadn’t seen anything and it got cloudy. Then it rained a wee bit and us girls persevered and were rewarded with lovely clear skies around 2am and a lovely view of the Milky Way all night. We saw about 50 meteors. Unforgettable. I will come back next year as it was such fun and the conversations get a bit ridiculous at that time of the morning!

It was also nice to see the Milky Way disappear as it got light and then gradually each star disappeared as if a wee man was going around putting each wee light out. Wonderful experience and thoroughly recommended!