WATCHING FOR METEORS

We lay back lazily on our chaise lounges and gazed at the northeastern sky, enjoying one of the many perks of the RV life: When the Perseid meteor showers are at their peak each summer, we can drive forty miles to a campground and view the meteors in comfort, little hindered by tall trees or air pollution. In 2016 astronomers had forecast an especially spectacular meteor shower.



The Silver Lake sharks are always friendly.

The campground is at Silver Lake, a reservoir at 7300’ in the Sierra Nevadas. We go there often for quick getaways, where we can walk, kayak, or rent a canoe. (I do fewer of these activities now, but still enjoy easy walks and campground life.) At one spot along the lake where the view to the northeast is completely unobstructed, there is plenty of room to set up a camera on a tripod and arrange our chaises.

Around midnight, we began to see the occasional meteor streak across the sky. One huge fireball was more spectacular and rewarding than anything we had expected. We continued watching until about 2:00 A.M, when we grew tired and returned to our RV. More persistent or younger stargazers no doubt saw many more--the display was greatest in the hours just before dawn, when we were fast asleep.

The annual meteor showers appear from Earth to emanate from the Perseus constellation, named for the mythical Greek hero Perseus. As his main claim to fame, Perseus severed the head of Medusa, an especially fearsome Gorgon whose hair had been turned to snakes by the goddess Athena. Perseus rescued and married the princess Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia and Cepheus,  who had left their daughter to die in order to mollify a sea monster. (I'm not making this up!) The ancient Greeks named some neighboring constellations in the northeast sky Perseus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, and Cepheus. It’s easy to imagine someone pointing out the figures and telling a child the gruesome story they represent.

The Perseid meteor showers are actually displays of comet dust entering Earth’s atmosphere. From late July to the middle of every August, and peaking around August 11, Earth is in just the right position to be showered with the remnants of the Comet Swift–Tuttle. The comet gives off a cloud of debris, made of particles (meteors) that burn up as they streak through the atmosphere and provide natural fireworks.

Though the Perseus myth and the scientific aspects of the meteor showers are absorbing, to me the best part of watching the showers is their awe-inspiring beauty. Walt Whitman said it far better than I can long ago, in his “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”:

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,

   and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with

   much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Text copyright 2016 by Carol Stone, photo copyright 2016 by Thane Puissegur