Last night, we were told that there was going to be a meteor shower, called the Perseids. I was quite skeptical about it, coz in such a quiet town as this, if there is going to be something so exciting as a meteor shower, there will be a lot of hooha. SS labelled me as a wet blanket, and went on to research on information on how to best view the shooting starts. I stuck to my wet-blanket-role and stated matter-of-factly that 60 to 100 shooting stars an hour means that we will only catch like one to two stars a minute... not exactly a spectacle.
Anyhow, SS found out that, to have the best view of Perseids, we should:
1. Look for a dark (and safe) place, away from as much artificial light as possible
2. Look and the northeast quadrant of the sky.
3. Keep a lookout from midnight to dawn.
Not sure if the saying is really true, but because "the night is darkest before the dawn", we decided to wake up at the ungodly hour of 4.30am to catch the shooting stars. We headed towards a park near our place, and during the 20min walk there we caught one or two shooting stars. SS asked me to make a wish, to which I grouchily replied, I wish I could see more shooting stars. He took that as an equivalent of using a wish to make more wishes, and automatically voided my wish. Upon reaching the park, we realised the lights were too bright for any form of viewing, hence we walked back to our house, and picked the darkest place we could find in our estate, placed our sleeping bags on the grass, laid down, and waited.
And waited.
Maybe SS has bigger eyes or something. He kept saying: Look there's one! And then I will look in the same direction and see nothing. This happened quite a few times, and I concluded either his positive attitude is letting him see more stars than me, or he is hallucinating. I did see a few shooting stars, but they were gone in a split second, and couldn't satisfy my craving.
Finally, we both saw one bright streak across the sky. That was the highlight of the night. We decided to end our viewing session on a high note, packed up, and went back to bed.
Last night in SG
13 years ago
3 comments:
luckily it is in summer oh...hahaha imagine he dragged you out in winter.
I saw the Perseids on CNN yesterday. Someone took a picture of it in the desert and sent it in. Apparently it's a yearly thing eh?
haha... i don't think anyone will be capable enough to drag me out to see stars in winter.
Yup, it is a yearly thing! I can't believe I have missed it for the past twenty or so years... yeah, some of the photos online were really nice. Maybe next year we will be more well prepared and hopefully get some nice photos.
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