Thing 121 Shooting Star Trek

I have an outrageous back-of-head don't I? I've never seen it like this before. Awful really. Just awful. Stars were magnificent though.

We made quite a journey you know, that's why I'm calling it the Shooting Star Trek. Because it was a serious Trek. Our gaff, Froodie's gaff, Parteen, Kilaloe, Ballina and Woodcock Hill, Garrykennedy... It's a long haul. Totally worth it though. Chuffed to bits. It was a cloud-dodging mission. Which in this country is something of an achievement. It's pretty much clouds as far as the eye can see, from January to December and all the months in between. We get Summer over a very short period. It was a Tuesday this year. I'm hoping for a Saturday Summer next year.

The Perseids meteors are the leftover rocks and space-dust from the Swift-Tuttle Comet. The Earth, not really knowing where it's going, reels drunkenly through the tail of the comet, and the dust and rocks smack into our atmosphere and burn up goodo. The result is a bunch of long streaks of light that stretch from the north-east. Dozens and dozens of them. There'll be wishes coming true for a million years (not a guarantee).

Moving at sixty-kilometres a seconds, and sizing up at twenty-seven kilometres wide (which makes a midget out of the comet that killed all the dinosaurs), Swift Tuttle is considered to be the single most dangerous object known to humanity. And it's chunks of that fiery death that we all stayed up to see.
Sadly for The Frenchman, apparently his kind can't see shooting-stars and while the rest of us watched an incredible heavenly light show, he looked at the back of my head. To be fair, it's an engrossing sight.

So no bed for us. Let's all stay up and drag our asses around to see chunks of fiery death. Beautiful, magnificent, awe-inspiring chunks of fiery death.

We tried to get to Woodcock Hill, logic being we'd get no light pollution and good viewpoint. Fail. The entire top of the Hill was shrouded in cloud. We drove into clouds to get away from clouds. Duh. So we made for Garrykennedy. Result. Perfect view.
I've always wanted to know more about the stars. I grew up in Parteen, which is countryside, which means any kind of clear night means beautiful views of stars. I know nothing about them. Dr Frasier can tell you all about the constellations. He probably knows them all by their first names. Not me.

You don't have to be an expert to appreciate it though. I hope you bothered your ass to go have a look. If you didn't... shame on you.