The Perseids

After midnight tonight Jackson and I found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, parked on someone's farm driveway with my lights off, perched on the hood of my car and waiting for the Perseid meteors to show their pretty little tails.

We were not disappointed. I wish I could say I took this picture, but that would be impossible because I'm pretty sure I'd have to be in the middle of the desert with a $20,000 camera to get a similar shot, but thanks to Wikipedia you can get a pretty good idea of the quality of shooting starts we saw tonight.

There were big ones, small ones, bright ones, dim ones, long ones, short ones, and one that lit up so huge I could have sworn I saw the flames coming off it as it scraped our atmosphere. There must have been at least a dozen in the fifteen minutes we were sitting out there. 

It was beautiful, and so worth it. There's nothing like the childish glee that comes from glimpsing a meteor's tail--that streak of light so brief and bright that it sticks like a burn in behind your eyes even as you wonder if it was ever there at all. 

If you get the chance in the next day or so, take a look outside somewhere dark and maybe you'll catch a glimpse of the Perseids. And if not, they'll be back this time next year. Maybe by then I'll have rigged up an astronomy camera of some sort to document these things with my own photographs.

Photo Credits:
Wikipedia
Ali Jarekji/Reuters
RedOrbit.com