Last Saturday night, Stan, the other Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) living in my town, and I went up onto his roof to watch the shooting stars of the Draconid meteor shower. I had read in a news article on the Internet earlier in the day that people in North Africa would be well-situated to see the falling meteors. I had also read that the best time to view the shooting stars would be between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time) on the east coast of the U.S. Morocco is located in the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) time zone, so Morocco is currently 5 hours ahead of EST. Thus, I figured that the best time to watch the meteor shower here in Morocco would be between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Stan and I got up onto his roof around 7:30 p.m. I had read in the article that because the moon was nearly going to be a full moon, it would be reflecting so much light that we wouldn't see as many shooting stars as if it were a new moon. Indeed, when we first got up onto his roof, the moon was already throwing enough light that it was already obvious that we wouldn't have the best viewing conditions. Also, there were no clouds whatsoever in the sky, which on the one hand meant that our view was not obscured by clouds. On the other hand, though, that also meant that the moon was able to bring that much more light to us, thus making it more difficult to see whatever shooting stars there were.
Anyway, despite the brightness of the moon, very soon after we sat down in his plastic chairs on his flat, concrete roof, we started seeing shooting stars. While there were pauses when we were scanning the sky for shooting stars, I don't think we ever had to wait more than a few minutes to see a falling meteor. And this was given how bright the sky was. Between 8:10 p.m. and 8:20 p.m., we counted 18 shooting stars. I have to imagine that if the sky had been darker, we would have seen even more of them.
Despite how bright the sky was, I was very happy that we saw this one particular shooting star. It was by far the biggest and most impressive one I've ever seen. It was a bright, white, round ball, which had a trail of much smaller, and much less bright, pieces flying off of it. Interestingly, given how bright and large it seemed to be, it didn't seem to fade out gradually; rather, all of a sudden, it disappeared. Whatever the reason for its apparently rapid disappearance, I was very thankful to have seen it.
Stan and I also found this particular meteor shower notable because the falling meteors seemed to be located over such a large portion of the sky. Given that the shooting stars were spread over such a large part of the sky, sometimes one of us would see one of them, but the other of us would miss that particular one because of looking in another part of the sky at that particular moment. At the time when one of us missed one of them, of course the other one of us was disappointed to have missed one. However, in retrospect, the immensity of the scope of the meteor shower, which caused us to miss some of them, seems to have been another indicator of the magnificence of this meteor shower, for which I was very thankful, as a natural wonder and gift from the heavens, which we were able to enjoy simply by looking skyward.
Stan and I got up onto his roof around 7:30 p.m. I had read in the article that because the moon was nearly going to be a full moon, it would be reflecting so much light that we wouldn't see as many shooting stars as if it were a new moon. Indeed, when we first got up onto his roof, the moon was already throwing enough light that it was already obvious that we wouldn't have the best viewing conditions. Also, there were no clouds whatsoever in the sky, which on the one hand meant that our view was not obscured by clouds. On the other hand, though, that also meant that the moon was able to bring that much more light to us, thus making it more difficult to see whatever shooting stars there were.
Anyway, despite the brightness of the moon, very soon after we sat down in his plastic chairs on his flat, concrete roof, we started seeing shooting stars. While there were pauses when we were scanning the sky for shooting stars, I don't think we ever had to wait more than a few minutes to see a falling meteor. And this was given how bright the sky was. Between 8:10 p.m. and 8:20 p.m., we counted 18 shooting stars. I have to imagine that if the sky had been darker, we would have seen even more of them.
Despite how bright the sky was, I was very happy that we saw this one particular shooting star. It was by far the biggest and most impressive one I've ever seen. It was a bright, white, round ball, which had a trail of much smaller, and much less bright, pieces flying off of it. Interestingly, given how bright and large it seemed to be, it didn't seem to fade out gradually; rather, all of a sudden, it disappeared. Whatever the reason for its apparently rapid disappearance, I was very thankful to have seen it.
Stan and I also found this particular meteor shower notable because the falling meteors seemed to be located over such a large portion of the sky. Given that the shooting stars were spread over such a large part of the sky, sometimes one of us would see one of them, but the other of us would miss that particular one because of looking in another part of the sky at that particular moment. At the time when one of us missed one of them, of course the other one of us was disappointed to have missed one. However, in retrospect, the immensity of the scope of the meteor shower, which caused us to miss some of them, seems to have been another indicator of the magnificence of this meteor shower, for which I was very thankful, as a natural wonder and gift from the heavens, which we were able to enjoy simply by looking skyward.
D-
ReplyDeleteI am writing you today, so I thought I would stop in at your blog.
I enjoyed reading your account of the meteor shower! My girls and I went up to Tiedemann field one year to watch the Perseids... Never will I forget how cold we got and how awed my daughters were by the show!
All the best,
AEH