Exactly one.
I’ve always considered the Perseids to be MY meteor shower, appearing, as they do every year, exactly on my birthday.
In recent years, there’s always been something interfering with my ability to get out in the wee small hours of the morning and enjoy the display — like last year, when the cruelly glaring full moon drowned out all lesser lights. But hey, it’s a waning crescent this time, perfect, right?
Right?
Of course, Connecticut is the Land of Light Pollution, and I’d have to drive an hour to get to any decent dark-sky location — but it’s Saturday night, so what the heck, I can sleep late the next day!
Perfect. So what’s to stop me?
How about: rain, rain, and then some more rain.
Oh, look! Here’s a link to Space.com, showing lots of photos by people who had better weather! How nice for them!
Yep.
Sunday night’s weather promised to be clear and lovely, and yes it was. But alas: could not undertake a drive of an hour, viewing for about an hour, and a drive back getting home at, oh, 3 or 4 AM. So I went out on the back porch. In a condo complex. Well-lit, for safety. Really well lit.
The back porch was darker than the front parking lot, but not by much.
Still I saw one, hooray!
But just one. Alas.
And that was it.
What the heck. Here’s a neat photo from last year’s Perseids by astronaut Ron Garan. There’s only one meteor in the photo, true — but please note that it is photographed from above. Obviously the way to go.
(You should click to embiggen, because it’s gorgeous full-sized.)