Star Gazing in August

The Perseid meteor shower brought me down to earth recently. The stream of debris, an ancient cloud consisting of particles ejected from the Swift-Tuttle comet, has been in the news as a sight to see in recent days. Small, dime-sized or smaller fragments burn off as meteors, and peak in visible activity between August 9 - 14 this year.

This meteor shower has been observed for at least 2,000 years, with the earliest data about it coming from the Far East. In my mind, I envision shepherds guarding their flocks at night, with no city lights, smart phones or other distractions to get in the way. I'm sure without all the ambient light, the sky must have nearly burst and throbbed with the constellations and comets - a primeval laser show.

I'm not enough of a night owl to wait up for the best view of the shower (after midnight or when the crescent moon had set). Also, here in Northeastern Indiana we had some cloud cover, so I thought the whole idea might be a bust. But low and behold, early Monday morning I found myself waking up at 2 a.m., and decided to get up and see if I could peruse any shooting stars.

I was the only person awake. I tried to not turn on lights so as to keep my eyes adjusted to the dark. Sleepily, I grabbed a bathrobe and a pillow and decided to just lie down on the concrete driveway. A lawn chair would have been better, but there wasn't one on that side of the house so I settled for the cool cement.

I didn't see anything at first, but I heard many things. One was the deep call of the big bullfrog down at the lake. It sounds like it's always the same frog guy. Is it really always this 'Fred', or are there others who have the same sounding voice (and same territory)? I don't know the answer to this question.

I also heard birds twittering and chirping. This really surprised me at after 2 a.m. It made me check the clock, because I didn't know they carried on like that in the middle of the night. It was how I just said though - maybe they were up thinking they saw some fireflies 'way up in the sky to go after (kidding).

The insects put up their chorus as well. Best of all, two owls started up, communicating with each other. First, a higher pitched 'WHO WHO who-who-who WHO!' Then the same call, the same rhythm, but notes in a lower range. They seemed to speak to each other back and forth from different trees for some time, and then stopped. In my mind, with their excellent night vision, they saw me come out and were alerting each other "it's a human - let's owls not track rabbits until the primate vacates."

And then, as I looked straight up into the darkest part of the sky, I began to see the seemingly quickened acceleration of the meteors as they burned themselves up in our homey atmosphere. When I finally saw a so-called shooting star, I got an adrenalin rush that excited me so much, it made me wait patiently through the boredom to see another one. It took several minutes. Then I saw another! Excitement again! I learned to scan the sky in the darkest places, and to try not to blink. I don't have good vision, and I think I need a new prescription for distance, because I even tilted my eyeglasses slightly to better focus the distant sky. I didn't use binoculars or a telescope, but I'm sure that would be great also for those inclined.

I stayed out there at least 45 minutes - I think it was after 3 a.m. when I actually went back to bed, and I am so glad I did it. I'm not sure if there was any vivid color attached or what I saw was just a brillant, sudden light streak - and there definitely was a momentary vapor or dust trailer that followed. It was something wonderful, natural to see.

Perhaps, maybe next time I would recommend to others: remember mosquito spray and a blanket. I do know one thing - in the future when I learn there will be a meteor shower, I will be getting up in the night to go outside to watch it.