What a difference 7 weeks makes around here. Back in the early morning hours of October 22, I was comfortably kicking back on the deck with a beer, watching the Orionid meteors with temperatures in the mid-60's. Contrast that with last night's Geminid meteor shower where the beverage of choice was a hot chocolate as temperatures held steady in the mid-teens.
It wasn't the cool weather that ended the observing session it was the building cloud cover which brought some lake-effect snow showers that added another inch to the 6 inches that fell Wednesday.
If you look close at the photo below you'll see the meteor streak is a squiggly line. No grand celestial phenomena at play here, just by my heavy footsteps causing vibrations as I was shoveling the snow off the deck after I set up the camera.
By the time I got the deck cleared, the clouds became more intrusive. Just after I sat down I spotted this bright meteor which was probably between magnitude 0 or -2.
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| Bright meteor to the upper left of the Olive-sided Flycatcher tree. |
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| Crop of previous photo. |
