Weekly update

There was supposed to be a metoer shower last weekend, so we went to my parents' lake cottage on Saturday and stayed the night. The moon wasn't shining and the clouds had cleared up, so we had a great view of the night sky. We waited until it was good and dark, then piled in the boat and idled out to the middle of the lake.

The news reports said it might be possible to see one meteor a minute on average. Our results weren't quite that high, but we did see several while we were out. I think we were out for 45 minutes and saw 7 meteors. I wonder how many you can see on a regular night.

Oh, by the way, boats aren't designed for laying back and staring at the sky.

There were some bugs out, but they didn't bother people as much as the low-flying bats.

It was fun watching the meteors, but I wish we could have seen more. The lake isn't as remote as it used to be, so there was still light polution, but it was much better than it would have been in town.

I tried to line up our little telescope on a star, but the view finder wasn't working correctly. I'll have to try it again when the moon is out, since it's a bigger target and should be easier to line up.


-- C.