Meteor Watch

I like to look at stars, so when I read that we were passing through a decent meteor shower on 11th August and for the next couple of nights, and as we were having a pretty decent run of good weather, I decided I wanted to go somewhere dark and see what I could see.

On Monday 12th, I texted my brother Jim, who also likes to look at stars and knows much more than me, to see if he wanted to go somewhere dark after work too.  Around 10:30 that evening Robert and I went to pick up Jim and Liz and then we drove up to Crown point and parked near the singing ringing tree (actually, that reminds of something Robert and I did on week two of my summer holiday. We went up to the singing ringing tree for the first time and took lots of nice photos).  There were already a few cars there with people gazing up at the sky.

Jim got us all looking in the right direction, and even though there was some cloud around, there was enough clear sky to make it worth it.  Now when you're looking up at the night sky, you need to get your night vision working and the last thing you need is car headlights in your face.  Unfortunately, other people insisted on using their headlights to see where they were going or where they were parking without any consideration to those of us who were trying to look at stars.  Some of us were more irritated by this than others.  I won't say who was most irritated by this but I will say that most of the derisive comments were being said in a Scottish accent and a healthy dose of Southampton.  I was quite concerned as sound travels well on the hills at night and I thought people would hear them, and some of the people up there looked a little too "Burnley" for my liking, and as it got later, I don't think they were all there to look for meteorites.

As it turns out, this was also a good night to see the International Space Station.  I'd looked for this a few times when it was supposed to be visible without success.  What I needed was my big brother to be there and point it out to me.  We saw it bright and clear travelling across the sky at around 11pm.  We also saw two other random satellites while we were out.

We also saw the meteorites that we had gone there to see.  Every time we saw one we all whooped and Liz and I threw our hands up.  I saw twelve all together which is the most I have ever seen. Some of us saw more than others and there was a thought put forward that if we didn't all see them then they weren't really there.  I'm still saying I saw twelve though.

Thanks to Liz's blankets we kept fairly warm, and Robert provided the Galaxy, Milky Way and Star bars to eat. He thought he was being clever bringing activity related confectionery. I think it was about midnight when we got home.  I loved it.  No photos to post though as it's a bit difficult to photograph meteorites when you don't know what half the buttons on your camera do.