Perseid Meteors and Light Sabers

Stayed up late last night trying to watch the Perseid meteor shower. They don't really get going until 10 or 11 p.m., and are best in the early morning, like around 3 or 4 a.m., I guess. But we started out around 10 p.m., and spotted a few here and there. It was a little chilly, so we sat in the comfort of the hot tub and star gazed. Very comfy. For a while. Then it got too hot. Sitting in 101 degree water for an hour is not really a Good Thing IMHO.

So after ditching the hot tub and changing into "real" clothes, we gave it another shot. This time - of all the possible things that might stop viewing a meteor shower - fog began to roll in across the hills and block the view. I even had the telescope out and was aiming it straight at Mars (which is to be pretty close to Earth this year), when the little red bugger just vanished from sight.

Oh well.

We had a Maglite handy - one of the big three-cell kind - and shined it into the fog and made stupid Star Wars sound affects. It really did look sort of like a 30-foot light saber. If you had a good imagination.