Skip to main content

Shooting Stars

Apparently, Luke does not trust me.  He wanted me to wake him up at 1 this morning to watch the Perseid meteor shower, but as he was telling me to "make sure to wake me up," he realized that he has his own alarm clock.  He set it and was ready to go.  I asked the girls if they wanted to be woken up and they declined.

He may have had reason to not believe that I would wake him up.  We have tried to wake Luke up in the middle of the night for other astronomical events but he is notoriously difficult to wake up.  I recall shaking and yelling, only to have him roll over and groan.  Last night I was prepared to go into his room to turn off his alarm when he didn't wake up this morning, but it turned out not to be a problem---he was bright eyed and bushy tailed after only about 30 seconds of alarm. (Note: the alarm woke me up without any trouble, even from the other room.)

We went out to the darker end of the street and lay down in the damp grass.  We saw maybe 5-10 meteors in the half hour we were out there.  Not as many as we might have seen in a darker place: there is a lot of light pollution where we are so that's not surprising.  I am thinking (only thinking) about asking the neighbors to turn off their outdoor lights tonight.

Just as we were about to go in, a huge, bright meteor crossed the sky, leaving a visible thick tail.  It was clearly the best one of the night.  I am thankful for our atmosphere, and thankful for the comet that leaves its debris in the earth's path.  Meteor showers are awesome.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My hero, Helen Parr

Otherwise known as Elastigirl , a.k.a Mrs. Incredible. She is a stay at home mom ( SAHM ), she clearly feels that what she is doing is important and is willing to give up a lot to do it (remember her comment in the intro: "I'm at the top of my game! Leave saving the world to the guys? I don't think so.") But she is finding fulfillment in leading her family from day to day, in doing a hard job well. She also knows that she is very talented, and that knowledge helps her see beyond the repetitive drudgery of staying home. My favorite scene is from the deleted introduction, where she talks with a "career woman" who is of the opinion that staying home is fine for people who can't do anything else. She responds that taking care of her kid is at least as hard as saving the world, and is valuable contribution to society. The point for me is that someone has to do the job that I'm doing, and it's not something that you could pay someone to do. I see...
8 comments
Read more

Things that are true

"Axial tilt is the reason for the season." (Picture a globe with the northern hemisphere tilted away from the sun...) I believe this is meant to be an anti-theist slogan, although I would point out that I believe there is a reason for the axial tilt. This is a runner up to my favorite true science picture, the "Gravity Forecast." I linked to this when I was a graduate student, but the site is long since down. Picture a weather forecast graphic, but instead of clouds and temperatures, the 5-day forecast predicts 9.8 m/s^2 down. Even the idea still makes me laugh, perhaps I will reproduce it someday. Luke cut his 4th tooth today (Finally!). So far they haven't caused us too much trouble. We'll see what happens when he gets his canines.
8 comments
Read more

Why the world is frustrating

It is very frustrating to be 2. Michael and I have been teaching Luke about closing doors and turning off lights---both good habits. He really enjoys opening the refrigerator door. He knows how to turn out the light. But when I try to get him to shut the refrigerator door, he screams, "Turn out the light!" He keeps getting in the way of the door so that he can push the little button. As far as I know, he's trying to turn off the light before we shut the door, and the fact that it keeps coming back on when we move him out of the way so we can shut the door drives him crazy. He doesn't believe us that the light goes out when the door is shut, and after all, how do we know ourselves? We've never seen it, we use logic. But this makes any attempt to shut the door a battle, unless I sneak over there without him seeing.
5 comments
Read more