The Sky Was Falling!

So, according to several news sources, the Perseid Meteor Shower was at its peak the last two nights, August 11 & 12. Tuesday night, I had the worst caffeine-withdrawal headache (that's another blog post in itself), so I ended up falling alseep pretty early. I did wake at 3am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, so I stepped outside for about 15 minutes to see what I could see.

Now, I live in Borrego Springs, which is, according to the International Dark Sky Foundation, the second-darkest night sky in the country, behind only Flagstaff, Arizona. What this means is that we have minimal light pollution from city lights. Considering we're a valley and surrounded by mountains and our "downtown" is less than a mile long, it's pretty awesome.

However, at 3am Wednesday morning, the moon was high, so I couldn't see much. Plus, I was still half asleep, and my eyes were taking a while to adjust to the light, or lack thereof.

So last night, Wednesday night, I went out at about 9:30 pm. My boyfriend (another LONG story) brought his truck by, and we sat in the back looking at the sky. My apartment complex has a few lights on, but at 10pm, they shut off, which made looking at the meteors much easier. The moon rose at 11:15, but it didn't hinder us until about 1am.

We saw so many meteors! Some that stretched the sky with bright tails, and others that were just quick "shooting stars." Some were green, and some were red. Some tails hung around for a few seconds, and others were quick to disappear. Then there were the few that looked like fireballs heading for Earth. It was the coolest thing I'd seen in the night sky, and I've seen my fair share of lunar eclipses and even the International Space Station fly overhead (which, I missed the sighting this morning at 5am, since I didn't get to sleep until after 2am).

There is supposed to be another meteor shower in December on my birthday. I just hope that the winter weather cooperates so I can see it!