The Stars in the Heavens

Last Night I stayed up to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower, a longstanding tradition with me. Could be as many as 100 an hour the astronomers said. With great anticipation, just around midnight, Sweet Victoria Rose and I gathered in the yard for a front row seat to the grand cosmic ballet. And to our delight we saw half a dozen or so shooting stars streak across sky. It was late and it had been a long day for both of us. My wife, having the sense in the family, decided to go to bed after the initial spurt of meteors.

The real show won't start until the predawn hours the same said astronomers predicted. So I too went in the house, not to go to bed but to piddle with an art project for a couple of hours until time for the real spectacle to begin. I had a whole bag full of provisions, equipment and various sundries to enhance the viewing experience, as well as a large mug of iced tea. You simply cannot view meteors properly without iced tea. I settled in and waited for the show. And waited. And waited. And waited.

 There in those predawn hours in which I was promised at least 300 meteors I sat like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin. And like Linus I was disappointed. Oh, I did see the celestial ballet, or at least a rehearsal for it. The crescent moon lined up with Venus and Jupiter nicely. That was pretty. My patience was rewarded with a glimpse of the International Space Station passing slowly overhead. (Don't get too excited. You can't see solar panels and astronauts floating around. It looks like a dim star following an arc across the sky as it reflects light from the sun which has not yet crested the horizon.) And I did see some meteors. Five of them.

Yes, for the three hours I sat there in the dark I was granted a peek at exactly five meteors. Not even half-a-dozen but FIVE. Those 100-meteor-an-hour guys really ought to be selling used cars. I was operating at a meteor deficit. The astronomers owe me 295 meteors. It hasn't always been like this. As a kid my best friend David and I would camp in my folks' back yard and watch a grand show every August. As an adult I've seen a few good ones too. One in particular leaps to mind-- sitting in the open hatch-back of a little Ford Escort, listening to "The Planets Suite," By Gustav Holst, with a bottle of wine and good company as meteors whizzed through the heavens like Van Gogh's Starry Night. But this morning was very different. No wine, no Holst, no company and darn few meteors. At five in the morning I finally dragged my weary bones to bed.

They say that the shower for tonight ought to be as good or better than the Saturday/Sunday version. They say you might be able to see 100 meteors per hour. So if you are out and about just before dawn you might stop and stargaze for awhile. And if you see a lonely figure in the gloom and ask yourself, "I wonder who that idiot is, sitting in his yard in the dark." It's just me waiting for The Great Pumpkin.