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Shooting stars
Aug. 12th, 2009 09:16 amI love shooting stars. But since I've usually lived in urban environments, my chances of spotting them have been few and far between – and when I've been in non-urban environments, I've generally either been zonked out, or too excited about possible bears to spend significant time looking for flaming things to fall out of the sky.
But, since I'm currently living in a semi-urban environment – admittedly within sound of Disney fireworks, but also within a short distance of roaming ostriches, peacocks and American bison – last night I determined that that would All Change, and I would look for the Persieds where, the ever reliable Wikipedia assured me, about 60 blazing things would fall every hour.
As always, Wikipedia turned out to be just slightly misleading.
So, after resting through the evening, and armed with my little star map (which turned out to be even more misleading) binoculars and my iPod (which turned out to be the more reliable than anything else) I headed out, with a careful eye for lurking alligators, and looked up into the sky. You are not going to get any pictures of the next several minutes because although I took some they have a closer resemblance to great grey falling blobs than spectacular scenes of a dancing, dazzling night sky bursting with brilliant stars.
Not that brilliant things weren't around – they were. I found the moon pretty easily (in my photo it is a nice light grey falling blob). After that my star gazing went downhill. I found a nice bright light which I thought was a planet and was apparently the International Space Station (which was mildly awesome since I don't think I've seen that before) or a satellite (which is more likely if less awesome) and another bright light that I thought was a meteor and was actually a helicopter, and a third bright streak of light that turned into a plane. After this I figured the star map might be a bit useful, so I looked at it and the sky and confirmed that Perseus was where Perseus was supposed to be, which was also where, in theory, the meteors would come blazing through the sky.
So I sat in a decidedly hopeful fashion as insects came and squeaked that dessert had arrived, and watched the constellation of Perseus shine and shine and slowly get covered by some lovely wisps of clouds until it was completely obscured.
It's entirely possible that meteors arrived after the clouds did, but I could not convince myself that this falling stargazing attempt had been at all a success, so headed back. Maybe next year.
Oh, and since I can't show you pictures from that, pictures of the earth and common stars. I feel very very small now. This means I can have ice cream.
But, since I'm currently living in a semi-urban environment – admittedly within sound of Disney fireworks, but also within a short distance of roaming ostriches, peacocks and American bison – last night I determined that that would All Change, and I would look for the Persieds where, the ever reliable Wikipedia assured me, about 60 blazing things would fall every hour.
As always, Wikipedia turned out to be just slightly misleading.
So, after resting through the evening, and armed with my little star map (which turned out to be even more misleading) binoculars and my iPod (which turned out to be the more reliable than anything else) I headed out, with a careful eye for lurking alligators, and looked up into the sky. You are not going to get any pictures of the next several minutes because although I took some they have a closer resemblance to great grey falling blobs than spectacular scenes of a dancing, dazzling night sky bursting with brilliant stars.
Not that brilliant things weren't around – they were. I found the moon pretty easily (in my photo it is a nice light grey falling blob). After that my star gazing went downhill. I found a nice bright light which I thought was a planet and was apparently the International Space Station (which was mildly awesome since I don't think I've seen that before) or a satellite (which is more likely if less awesome) and another bright light that I thought was a meteor and was actually a helicopter, and a third bright streak of light that turned into a plane. After this I figured the star map might be a bit useful, so I looked at it and the sky and confirmed that Perseus was where Perseus was supposed to be, which was also where, in theory, the meteors would come blazing through the sky.
So I sat in a decidedly hopeful fashion as insects came and squeaked that dessert had arrived, and watched the constellation of Perseus shine and shine and slowly get covered by some lovely wisps of clouds until it was completely obscured.
It's entirely possible that meteors arrived after the clouds did, but I could not convince myself that this falling stargazing attempt had been at all a success, so headed back. Maybe next year.
Oh, and since I can't show you pictures from that, pictures of the earth and common stars. I feel very very small now. This means I can have ice cream.
