Maybe you heard about the Perseids show, which peaked last night. Drew and I got up a little after 1AM to see what we could see: not a one, and we were out there for almost half an hour. It was an almost perfect sky, except for a few moving clouds and of course the light pollution. One of the space websites tells me that the time of "particular interest" was 3AM (12 Aug 09), but I think we were both more interested in going back to bed. We'll be out again tonight though.
This experience put me in mind of two other times I stayed up to see the heavens fall – with much more success. Once, in high school, I was in Cali visiting family, I forget for what occasion, and there was a shower (of the meteoric persuasion). We laid out in my uncle's yard with blankets wrapped about us, watching the sky. I don't know how long I was out there, but I remember counting some 30 that I saw. The other time was in college, when a carload of us drove up into the Hills to a popular lookout known to locals. From there we saw a spectacular show: I remember the purples and greens of whatever it was that was burning up in the atmosphere. It was quite late before we started heading back, and by that time, the space trash(?) was only just showing signs of letting up.
