Some Meteors resemble a fireball  and are so called. They are like a Roman Candle Streaking across a quarter of the night sky sparking joyously as they go...the evening can be truly amazing during the yearly Perseid Meteor Shower.

But, I fear and fear admitting that last night was so good exactly because I did it alone and was by myself. I drove up the Angeles Crest Highway into the San Gabriel Mountains that ring  Los Angeles...the most active and newest mountain range in the world they say.
 

Some Meteors resemble a fireball  and are so called. They are like a Roman Candle Streaking across a quarter of the night sky sparking joyously as they go...the evening can be truly amazing during the yearly Perseid Meteor Shower.

But, I fear and fear admitting that last night was so good exactly because I did it alone and was by myself. I drove up the Angeles Crest Highway into the San Gabriel Mountains that ring  Los Angeles...the most active and newest mountain range in the world they say.

But I found a turn off in a little valley, about 9.8 miles in, laid out a shirt from the back of my trunk on the ground and just laid down...the mountain was warm under me, even at 3:30am and this surprised me. It was like I was laying on hot stones brought out from a high end Japanese Spa to sooth me.

There was only a crescent moon. This was particularly good for the viewing in that it's brightness is just 30% of full. However, because I was in a dip at about the 3,500 ft level, the moon stayed mostly behind a ridge to my rear. I wish I had photographed this really lovely moonlit scene a little, but for me, photography is often a burden and this was supposed to be a present for that person that is me.

Laying on a hot mountain in the dark of night, drifting, a meteor shower overhead when I opened my eyes. Nice. This seems to be my year of Astophysics...I made and did well the Annular Solar Eclipse on May 20, 2012, in far away but stunning Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, at about the 7,500 ft level.

I was up above Los Angeles at the Griffith Park Observatory on August 6, watching a live feed from JPL when the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, touched down, everybody shouting and missing their attempts at high fiving and some people crying, Mars was a big deal and now, last night the night lit up for me...I was fortunate enough to see 1 and maybe 2 of what are known as fireballs, Meteors being tiny bits of matter streaking madly at 130,000 miles per hour across the night sky and then incinerating themselves into nothingness.

The Perseid Meteor Shower that happens every early August or thereabouts is known for having bright Meteors...but I've tried to see them before and never had the luck of seeing actual Fireballs, and though I only saw two light up the sky brightly, they were almost distant sparkler-like and left their white tails across a wide arc of the black sky.

All in all I did not see a hundred Meteors as is theoretically possible under perfect conditions; no moon, no city lights whatsoever, good altitude...I had none of these perfect conditions, but I could and did lay on the warm mountain rocky dirt for an uninterrupted hour and saw maybe 10 fine Meteors careening off in wildly different directions...and this was odd too, I thought the Meteors would all be going in roughly the same direction, but they weren't, they went wherever they wished, obeying Newtonian Laws that they knew better in their tiny icy cores than could any earthbound professor intellectually ever know...Then I had to shake myself and remember that these meteors were not the result of striking Earth's atmosphere...or not striking in the conventional sense of the word at all but rather it was Earth itself moving through the remnants of space debris left by the Swift-Tuttle Comet, it was Earth in motion striking the Meteors and then I stood up, laughing at myself and how little I knew for all my long life dedicated to leaning...as much as I could about as much as I could.

I still knew hardly nothing at all.

I read some Astro blogs today from here and there and around. People were thrilled to have seen 23 Meteors in 4 hours of serious searching so I figured I didn't do that badly at all.

I saw a car's headlights illuminate the speed sign across the road from me, and I smiled. There was a quick easy picture to be taken, (though I did eventually spend an hour working it in Photoshop), "45 Miles Per Hour," it read in full seriousness, above me Meteors were moving at a nicer clip, 130,000 miles per hour...

Traveller laughed.

He waited for the next car, took his picture and drove back to his soft bed in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

With Affection,  Me