(Please click on the photo above to go to the photographer's page - there's a nice commentary written about this shot, and also some more great photographs).
Somehow my insomnia kicks in regularly at around 3am each morning and I spend almost an hour unable to go back to sleep. On a bad night I can fall asleep just before the alarm goes off to wake us all for a new day - on those mornings I am extremely grumpy.
Last night however, I welcomed my insomnia since the annual perseid shower was in full spate. I opened my eyes, saw 4.12am on the digital display and gave sleep a reprieve. It didn't come so I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and padded down one floor to the glass doors out onto the deck.
There's quite a lot of light pollution around but with the moon down at last once my eyes acclimatised I could see some bright streaks crossing the sky.
Then there was a little squeak and a pad pad pad of tiny feet across the deck. My wee guy, who has shared my crazy sleep-wake cycle since we co-slept in those early years, came trotting out to see what mummy was doing. I wrapped him in my blanket and we star gazed together, with me explaining what meteors and comets were, which constellations we could see and how to make a wish on a shooting star. Then we crept back to bed, without waking daddy, and talked some more till we both fell asleep.
I asked him what had been his favourite moment out on the deck. He thought for a while and then said, "It was when you were telling me how meteors are."
A very special moment.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
a most magical night
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2 comments:
Who knows? Maybe one of our wee guys will go to Mars someday!
It's fun to share things like this with our little ones. Not only are we teaching them something (hopefully), but it's just plain fun.
It was cold here too. I don't know how many you all saw, but we only saw about 10 before we got too cold. We don't have a really big sky to view them in either, being surrounded by trees and mountains, so we basically looked straight up. Still it was a very clear night.
When I was still pregnant with Kevin, not long before he was born, I went out and watched the Leonids in Charlotte. It was the most awesome sight I've ever seen, even with all Charlotte's light pollution. I must have seen well over 65 in a single hour! I remember hearing it was the best Leonids show that had come around for quite a while and I believe it, because I'll never forget it.
Now that Kevin has started going to school, if meteor showers occur on school nights he won't get to experience them (except the Perseids and unless they happen on a weekend). But I look forward to this show every year so I can share it with him. Wish there was some way we could get together and have a meteor party! What fun that would be!!!
wow, coincidence! We must have watched the same Leonids! I think Kevin is a year older than my wee guy so the leonids we watched when we had just emigrated to Canada must have been the shower you watched while pregnant! We stood in a park in the middle of Vancouver, getting cold with our dog who thought we were plain nuts! It was an incredible display and I hope to see them again.
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