Dragged myself out of my warm bed and into the cold car this morning and went meteorite-watching. Not sure of the exact temperature, but I am in Maine, and it was 5something o'clock, and that was I all needed to know to dress in several layers of warm clothing.

Drove ten minutes out to the Blueberry Barrens, a nice dark piece of public open space. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few other cars in the parking lot.

The skies were clear and I saw about a baker's dozen meteorites in a half hour. This included a couple with really long tails, two that came down simultaneously, one odd one that moved slowly across the top of the sky then sped up and flashed as it approaced the horizon and one spectacular orange firebally one. Stop me if I get too technical in my descriptions (:

A pretty good show considering the full moon on one horizon and the encroaching dawn on the other. I caught a nice bright one as I was leaving and the sky was practically blue, but still dotted with a few stars.

Just before dawn, a flock of geese flew overhead and you could just make out their silhouette against the morning stars and moonlit sky.

// mike
"Astronomy is looking up"