Great Balls of Fire!

Late night star gazing is usually just that. Gazing. Last night it was a bit more enthusiastic. But only a bit. With this meteor shower going on, and our terrible habit of going to bed late, Nathan and I were able to see some shooting stars last night!

I'd never seen one before, but Nathan has seen plenty. While Nathan was in the house looking for his green laser pointer (which we like to use to scare the neighbors, but that's another post), I saw 2 shooting stars. While he went back into the house to get batteries for the laser pointer, I saw a couple more. When he went back into the house because I told him where the batteries actually were I, once again, saw a couple more.

Then he went into the garage to get our camp chairs. We watched together for a while, catching a few more together and trying to show each other stars too fast to share.

When my eyes were too tired to keep open any longer we decided it was time to go inside. Slowly we stood, still keeping our heads turned up to the sky. While Nathan took our chairs back into the garage, that's when it happened. The biggest, longest lasting shooting star so far, and then . . . BANG! It exploded. It was awesome. Purely awesome. Nathan was excited that I'd gotten to see a fireball meteor, but disappointed that he hadn't seen it, too.

As we walked back to the house we held our heads back, trying to glance one last shooting star.

This picture is what it looked like before it exploded.(Photo courtesy of amsmeteors.org)

Then it looked more like this. The main differences was the sky
was darker and it was more green-looking.

(Photo courtesy of utahskies.org)

It was way cool.