Watching the Perseid Meteor Shower

Posted by Kelly Whitt Aug 12, 2007

My family and I got all ready to watch the meteors tonight. We played outside until sunset and then headed in for showers and jammies and then brought the kids back out to the deck. We each sat in a reclining lawn chair with a child in our lap and watched as the sky got darker and more stars appeared.

When we first came outside Vega and two other bright stars in Lyra could be seen. By the time we went in for the night Lyra was peppered with little stars. Because my kids are young, we weren't even able to keep them up until 10 pm, which is hard considering the real meteor action starts an hour or so later than that.

We saw a couple of dim and questionable meteor streaks before my husband and daughter grew too tired to stay out. So my son and I each got our own lawn chair for a while. I knew he was getting tired too because he had just had a big weekend, and after another 5-10 minutes of nothing he asked if he could come sit on my lap. I knew he was growing tired but really wanted to see a good meteor yet, because he had only barely caught one of the earlier ones. Just a couple seconds after we got situated together on the lawn chair, a faint streak shot past the right side of the W of Cassiopeia. He didn't see it. But following within seconds were two more meteors, both cutting directly across the sky from left to right, tracing a line down the length of Cygnus and the Milky Way. Then there was another break in the action and my son spotted one by himself farther to the south where I had not been looking. Finally we caught one more back in the area of Cygnus before he was tired enough to call it a night.

After tucking him in it gave me an opportunity to post a quick blog. Then I will be able to sneak back out for a little while to see if I can up my score before bed.