Meteors and fireballs

The other night (13 December) I once again fell asleep without changing into my pajamas. But as usual, I woke up a few hours later, turned off my laptop, cleared my bed of my stuff and went to bed properly. After I turned off my lights and settled down in bed, I remembered that the Geminid meteor showers were supposed to start that evening and that it was supposed to be quite a spectacle this time around, with around 100 meteors occurring per hour. So I opened my curtains and, peering at the small patch of sky that I could see through my window, I was delighted to see lots of stars. This meant that the sky was clear and conditions were perfect for star gazing. And so I waited.

Sure enough, within a minute a shooting star came streaking down across the sky. After two minutes, there was another one! Wow. I'd never seen that many shooting stars within so short a time in my whole life. Then came another one... and another. All in all I saw six during the twenty minutes I managed to stay awake. And to think that I could see only a small part of the evening sky through my window. What more could there be if one could see the rest of the sky?!

I was therefore determined to spend yesterday evening watching out for meteors. Besides, I had read somewhere that the shower would peak that evening (14 December) at 16:45 GMT, which was around 00:45 local time (15 December). Thankfully it was a Friday and I could afford to stay up late and not worry about having to wake up early to go to work the next day.

So around 8:30 pm last night, I went outside to our driveway. I shut off the gate lights and light outside our garage. Unfortunately, there was still the light from the street lamp which made conditions less than ideal for star gazing. Anyway, as there was nothing I could do about it I turned to look northeast over the roof of our house. There I could see the constellations Taurus, Auriga, Cassiopeia and Orion. The Gemini constellation was barely above the rooftop but the planet Mars was well above it and shining its usual reddish glow.

Within a few minutes, I saw a meteor streak by. I saw about a dozen then (about twenty minutes) before I went back inside the house to rest my aching neck.

I went back outside around 9:20pm and saw more. There was even a really bright one that streaked through about 30-40 degrees across the zenith. I guess it was one of those that they call a fireball: it was not the usual faint streak of light characteristic of ordinary shooting stars. Instead I could clearly discern curling flames and smoke trailing behind the meteor. It was quite a spectacle.

I saw about a dozen more shooting stars later--including another though less impressive fireball--when I went out again around 11:00pm although they didn't seem to come as frequently then. I began to wonder if the shower had already peaked and that astronomers were mistaken in predicting that the peak would be much later that evening. Or perhaps I couldn't see that much (particularly the fainter ones) because of the slight light pollution caused by the nearby street lamp.

Anyway, I went outside one last time around 12:30am. There were clearly lesser shooting stars then. I saw just about a dozen during the 45 minutes I stayed outside. I felt sad and disappointed as brought in my stool (it was easier to watch sitting down despite having to crane my neck to look up) and locked the garage door for the last time that evening. But later I cheered up after realizing that I had experienced my first major meteor shower.

And now I'm even more glad I took the time to look last night. I took a peek at the sky earlier this evening and it was completely covered with clouds. And now it's raining.

[On the other hand, my mother was not so fortunate. She came out with me to take a look around 9:20 last night but went back inside after a few minutes to return to watching her tv shows. I had advised her to stay longer to watch for more meteors because there won't be a replay of this nature show. Then this morning, she announced that she was going to look out for meteors tonight. When I told her that it was virtually over because the peak was supposed to be last night she was naturally disappointed. She also thought the meteor showers were going to last over several days. I might be mistaken in supposing that there was nothing to see after last night. But even if there were "leftovers" today, there was no way one could see anything tonight now that the sky is overcast.]