Don't miss the Perseids
Sharing again "From the vantage of our roof"
I was busy this last week and almost let an annual tradition slip - heading up on our rooftop to watch the Perseids meteor shower. Luckily there’s some time left.
The Perseids is a meteor shower that occurs in late summer each year. The remnants of the comet Swift-Tuttle, the Perseids’ "shooting stars,” happen when Earth passes through the debris field left by the comet. During its peak, as many as 50 to 100 shooting stars are visible in a single hour. While the best time to watch this year was August 12th and 13th (last weekend), there's still time to see them - the Perseids last until August 24th.
So get outside one night this week, preferably in the early morning predawn hours when they'll be most visible. And to inspire a little star-gazing, I thought I’d share this story from way back in 2020. It seems like ages ago, but it was a blink of an eye in cosmic time scales. FYI - I’m making this story freely available to all - just like the stellar light show in the sky. ~JRC
From the vantage of our roof
A Saturday night, stay-at-home adventure to reconnect with the stars
Originally shared May 18, 2020
This last weekend, well after dark, my seven-year-old son and I climbed up on our rooftop. We live in a mid-century subdivision in northern San Diego County. Here, the houses are single-story with low, sloping roofs. Ours is an ideal perch to do a little people-watching from afar and a great place to take in the night sky. It's also the perfect stay-at-home escape during the quarantine.
My son digs the adventure of climbing up there. It's a roof, after all, and not something the average kid gets to play around on. We are careful. And ours is relatively safe as roofs go - it has a flat section over our sunroom that makes for a perfect access point. In the event of a slip, it's not far off the ground anyway. I wouldn't want to fall, mind you, but it wouldn't be that bad. The experience is a calculated risk and well worth it - he loves being there, and so do I.
We went up about 9:00 PM this time and on a Saturday, so our community was still hopping. It surprised me all the house parties going on despite social distancing orders. Occasionally a loud car or motorcycle raced down a nearby street. We saw a few people out walking their dogs, and a random cat crept up and over fences. All were oblivious to us up on our roof.
People watching aside, the real show is up in the sky. Even on overcast nights, we can see a lot. This evening, all the usual suspects were out. Venus was bright as always, just before it set over the horizon. And we could make out Ursa Major and Ursa Minor - a.k.a. The Big and Little Dippers. Polaris, the "North Star" at Ursa Minor's tip, was also visible.
We sometimes use one of those phone apps to identify more stars, but not this night. Instead, we peered with our eyes alone into the darkness as countless other humans before us.
We stared up into the black for a good long while. Occasionally my son shared a tidbit of knowledge he'd acquired. "Planets are much closer and smaller than stars, but they look brighter," he declared. We talked a bit about astronomy, but mostly we quietly watched.
After some time looking up, he wanted a snack, so I left him on the flat section while I ducked inside. When I returned with some cheese crackers, I found him lying on his back, one knee cocked up and a hand behind his head. He had been staring into the sky the whole time.
"Papa, look at those three stars," he said, pointing to the northwest. "They look like a 'C.'" He shaped his hand into the sign for a "C" as he talked.
At his age, he's not thinking much about the vast distances and numbers of stars in the cosmos. Instead, he sees shapes and imagines these to be representations of things he knows. That will change over time as he starts to grasp better what lies in the universe. But hopefully, it will always capture his imagination as it does now.
We lingered a bit longer, enjoying our snack and the fresh air. As it got later, the town noises began to subside, and we could hear the coyotes howling in the distance. Soon my son grew tired and asked to go inside. So we packed up our stuff and climbed back down together.
Sleep that night was more restful for us both. Our escape onto the roof was a reprieve. It helped me shed the burdens of life for a moment, and my son seemed calmer than usual after being up there. Too much time in the house can make anyone a bit stir crazy. So it's lovely to do something ever-so-slightly risky like climbing up on the roof. Up there, at night, we reconnect with ourselves and the universe.
Until next time.
JRC