Watching the Perseid Meteor Trickle
It was 10pm on a Sunday night, and as I’d been lazing around all afternoon, I decided to drive up to a nature park to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower. I pulled into the empty parking lot and gingerly stepped out into the dark. Leaves fluttered in the breeze, birds chirped, and tiny footsteps crinkled dead leaves on the ground. Not going to lie, the footsteps part freaked me out a bit. But if there were coyotes, I’d see glowing eyes, right? While I stood next to my car, asking myself if this was a good idea after all, a bright flash streaked across the sky. Wow, maybe the 60 meteors/hr rate I’d seen online wasn’t an exaggeration after all. I regained some confidence, set up my camera and tripod to try to catch a photo of one, and waited. An hour later, I’d only seen one more (and missed it with my camera), and it was getting cloudy, so I went home.
