Leonid Meteor Shower

It's 7:30AM and Heather and I are just
getting home. A late night of partying?
No. We were up most of the night to watch
the Leonid meteor shower.

I set my alarm for 2:30AM and then picked
Heather up at her place. She was groggy,
but well prepared with two pillows, a jacket
and some Gatorade. I brought the sleeping
bag and a third pillow. That's the great
thing about meteor showers... you don't need
any fancy equipment.

You do need a dark sky however. By 3:00AM
we were heading out I-20 east of Atlanta.
We drove for about 45 minutes, picked a
random exit and headed south. On back
country roads we saw little traffic so
pulled off on the side of the road and threw
down our sleeping bag. There was traffic,
but only about one car every few minutes.
We angled the car to block the light from
the one direction that most cars seemed to
come from.

I've been looking for a good meteor shower
my whole life. It seems that every time I
try to see one it turns out to be a dud, I
don't wake up or I it turns out cloudy. The
Leonid shower was the best of my lifetime
and I'm glad that I got to see it.

We arrived at our unplanned destination at
about 4:15AM. Immediately upon getting out
of the car I saw shooting stars. They were
not subtle. They were incredibly bright
with great orange tails. They arced across
the sky and sometimes we could see three at
a time.

Heather and I both saw a few fireballs... a
meteor that suddenly explodes when it hits a
certain point in the atmosphere. One left a
trail that was visible for over a minute.
We already see reports from California of a
similar fireball. I'd be willing to bet
that it was the same meteor.

It was cold out. We huddled on top of the
sleeping bag for a while, but were too
cold. In a fit of brilliance we decided to
put the bag on top of us. That was the
trick. We were able to watch until about
6:15AM as the sun was already beginning to
lighten the sky.

Throughout the night we were trendsetters.
Other meteor watchers pulled up, spurred by
our choice of location. At one point we had
three other groups of people. Initially it
was us in the middle of nowhere.

On the way home we stopped at the Awful
Waffle for some breakfast. We went home for
some much-needed sleep. A great night under
the stars!

They say that there will be another Leonid
meteor shower next year, but that it will be
obscured by a full moon. After that we'll
have to wait until 2099 for the next big one.