Night of the Shooting Stars

After a day filled with cleaning and packing I got discouraged and went to bed at 8:30. Shortly before 11 pm the doorbell rang. I woke up enough to decide to ignore it. It rang again. I was curious but unmoved. The third time I grabbed a pillow to cover the front of my unclothed me, peeked out the door and saw a military-green motorcycle on my lawn.

It’s a beautiful night for a ride, Bulwinkle said.

So we rode up to Grizzly Peak (I put clothes on first) where, for a change, there wasn’t a drop of fog.

Dozens of people had pulled over to gaze at the Bay and the panorama of sparkling cities. They were even wearing shorts and t-shirts, which never happens here. We kept going and reached a dark stretch of road where I was nearly shocked out of the saddle to see a sudden streak across the sky. And another. And more. I’d forgotten about the August meteor showers.

I just found this in New Scientist:

Sky watchers could catch a dazzling treat on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower.

Meteors are bits of dust or rock that collide with Earth’s atmosphere and heat up gas particles to produce a glowing trail. A handful of meteors can be seen each hour on any clear night, but during a meteor shower dozens may be visible.

The Perseid shower occurs each year when the Earth passes through a stream of debris shed by the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the  sun once every 130 years or so and last passed through the inner solar system in 1992.

The Perseid shower is expected to reach its peak at 1730 GMT on 12 August, but dozens of meteors per hour should be visible on the nights preceding and following the peak. The best time to catch the shower may be around 0900 GMT on 12 August, when meteor numbers may get a slight boost as the Earth passes by an additional stream of debris left by the comet in 1610.

On a clear night, an average of 60 meteors can be seen per hour close to the Perseids’ peak.

We found a sheltered spot by the side of the road, lay on a bed of aggressively prickly things and watched the sky, using a log for a pillow. Some of the shooting stars seemed so close it was like they were going to land on us. After one particularly dramatic sweep of burning meteorite, Bul said, Wow, that’s so perfectly straight. It’s just like it was done with Photoshop.