September 1, 2007: Gresham, Multnomah County, OR: Hearing a call from Nature at 4:15 this morning and realizing that the Aurigid meteor shower was supposed to peak about 4:30 I decided to take Lucy for a nocturnal walk and watch the expected shower of meteors.
The night sky was clear, the waning moon was shining brightly and even though there was a bit of chill in the air I was comfortable in a long sleeved shirt and jeans.
To my amazement automobiles passed through the intersection near our house nearly as often as during the day. The neighbor’s horses were whinnying to each other and I could hear several roosters crowing. Perhaps the city lights of Portland confused the chickens into thinking the sun was coming up. The neighbor up the road raises hounds and they were putting up a ruckus, perhaps just baying at the moon, or perhaps the horses and roosters disturbed their sleep.
Scientists predicted several hundred meteors per hour but waffled a bit saying no one really knew. These meteors were castoffs from comet Kiess in orbit around the sun with a period of once in 2,000 earth years. I don’t know about the rest of the region but I saw four meteors in approximately an hour… maybe I had just received the Kiess off.
byLarry
