In his Astronomy book, Gab was given an assignment to watch a meteor shower. Now, what kind of a book gives an assignment like that? 😀 Among them was the Perseid Meteor Shower 2017 happening on August 12-13.
I have watched a meteor shower before. It’s a beautiful experience. It will make you really appreciate how wonderful and spectacular God’s creation is. I think it was the Geminids and I saw about 20 shooting stars that night.
I wanted Gab to experience watching a meteor shower too. However, watching it in a city is not the optimum viewing experience due to the light pollution. Most of the meteors would be drowned down by the city lights. Thus, on the last minute, we decided to have a staycation in the south and wake up at midnight to catch some shooting stars.
The Perseid Meteor Shower 2017 will peak at 1AM of August 13. I checked the weather forecast and even the moon location. There is a chance of rain at 11PM but the weather should be fair by 1AM. The moon however will be high and bright. Thus, some meteors might drown out too. But they say that Perseid have lots of fireballs that will still make it a spectacular sight.
Gab slept very early at around 8PM. We plan to wake him up at 11PM. However, it was raining at that time. We got out at 12 midnight instead.
We found a spot that will hopefully give us an optimum view. The moon was really bright and the surrounding are well lighted too. The constellation Perseus, where the radiant will be, is close to the horizon too. In other words, it won’t be an optimum viewing experience.
I tried to lessen Gab’s expectation. According to his book, there will be about 50-100 meteors per hour. From my experience, it is usually less. I told him that we might just see less than 10 or even less than 5 that night. But Gab was still hopeful to see up to a hundred. I would be happy if Gab can see just one.
But we were not disappointed. We saw the meteors but not that many. Still it was a beautiful sight.
Gab was the first to see a meteor. He saw it alone since Quennie and I were looking at the other way. We all saw the second and the third meteor. We all shouted with delight as it streaked past the sky. The third one was probably the best and the biggest. It was long and low in the horizon. Almost like a fireball.
It was getting very cloudy again at around 1:15AM. We decided to call it a night and got back to our room.
Gab loved the experience and is already telling us when the next meteor shower will be. I plan to watch the Geminids again in December but Gab reminds me that there’s an Orionids in October.
We haven’t taken any pictures of the Perseid Meteor Shower 2017 but below are some photos shared on Twitter. They are amazing!
We hope to watch the Perseids again next year. It will be a new moon. Looks like the Perseid Meteor Shower 2018 will even be more beautiful.
#Perseid #Meteor
Taken by Karoly Jonas on August 13, 2017 Apaj – Hungaryhttps://t.co/ykdyvtthYB pic.twitter.com/PuA4tjLm12— Domenico Calia (@CaliaDomenico) August 14, 2017
Perseid meteor, Milky Way, and a weird festive green airplane light trail over an old schoolhouse in Wabaunsee County, Kansas on 8/13/17. pic.twitter.com/6PfH6pnx6G
— Jason Keller (@jasonkellerpt) August 14, 2017
Perseid Meteor last night over Great Sand Dunes National Park @KATVToddYak pic.twitter.com/7nzMb2eT7r
— Brian Emfinger (@brianemfinger) August 14, 2017
