lydamorehouse | Entries tagged with stargazing

Last night was the peak of the Persied meteor shower. It's become a tradition for Mason and I to hop in the car and head in the general direction of Cherry Grove (an astronomical viewing spot that

jiawen turned us on to years ago.) I'm not sure we have ever actually made it all the way to the official spot. Usually, we get some distance on Goodhue County Road 1 (or, in the past few years on the DETOUR of Goodhue County Road 1) and then randomly pull off in some cornfield and sit on the hood of our car.

This time had to be the best show ever.

Mason never makes it for very long. Deep, deep darkness (particularly in the country) freaks him out a tiny bit, so we usually never last more than ten minutes, if that. Plus, inevitably it's chilly. I would have thought last night would have been fine, given that it had been 90 F (32 C) all day, but, no, I was shivering and wondering if I should pull out the blanket from the back seat for us.

Regardless, in the short time we sat on the hood of our car, we must have seen seven or more long streaks, which were very easy to see.

Even when we go and it's too cold (or cloudy) to really enjoy the show, it's always a fun time. It's a very weird family tradition in a way, especially since it takes us far longer to get there and back again than the time we actually spend stargazing, but I wouldn't change a thing.

This weekend, Shawn alerted Mason and I to the Lyrid Meteor Shower. Mason and I love a good meteor shower, so I researched when the best viewing time might be (it was suggested that any time after moon set and dawn) and we headed south. We tend to head south instead of north because my friend (and amateur astronomer)

jiawen turned us on to a place in Goodhue County called "Cherry Grove." I don't think we've EVER actually made it to the actual viewing site, because we tend to like to pull over in a cut out near someone's cornfield somewhere off Goodhue County Road 1.

At its peak, the Lyrid promised twenty meteors an hour, and we must have been fairly close to that. We were in the random cornfield sometime around 2:00 am/2:30 am and I probably saw 8-10 in the half hour we lay, wrapped under blankets, on the hood of our car.

These seemed different to me than some of the others that we've observed. The comet particles may have been smaller than your typical shower (or the angle of approach different or something) because most of them were very tiny dashes, almost more like flashes, than the longer streaks you can sometimes see. This fast flash made it more difficult to point them out to Mason if I saw them first, and visa versa. I think he managed to spot a few, at least. The sky, at least, was clear as a bell and it was chilly, but not intolerably cold as it has been some nights we've tried this.

I think, too, for Mason, it's more about the midnight road trip (or 1:30 am, as the case may be.) We tend to have a lot of fun trying to find places to get me caffeine and find him food. Sunday morning (4 am), we ended up at the McDonald's on University by our house, which had the longest drive-through line I may have ever been in... I think there were only two people working, which was a major contributor. It was only afterwards that I noticed that the Denny's was open and I was sad because even though we got a very surreal experience (some police activity and the rumor of someone pulling open car doors and sitting inside occupied cars), breakfast crazy-early at Denny's is also One Of Those Things a person should experience at some point in their lives.

Honestly, I'm just pleased that Mason is still down for stargazing road trips with his ima. I don't think we talked about much of substance, but it's more that we put in some quality time, you know?

Only 4 short years until his emancipation. I'm going to have to pack in the good times. :-)

My birthday was Saturday. What I wanted to do most of all was go out to brunch. I’d been thinking about trying somewhere new, but, instead, we ended up at Grandview Cafe, which is just down the road from our house. It’s mostly known for its Cajun-style breakfasts and I had a big plate of biscuits and gravy, which was perfect. Very greasy, but just what I wanted.

We ended up having a bit of a “dinner and a show” thanks to two college-age boys in the booth across from us. They were either really hungover or….maybe… giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they’d just come off a long gaming session. Whatever their deal was, neither of them could keep their eyes open for more than five seconds. They were nearly literally face-planting into their breakfast plates. It was one of those things that was kind of hilarious for the first ten minutes and then it was like, “Dudes. Get it together.” You know?

But, they kept us entertained.

My family bought me a whole bunch of letter-writing supplies (Pens! Stationary! Return address labels!) Shawn also made me my favorite cranberry upside-down cake.

The rest of the day was low key, however. I’d been feeling under-the-weather the day before and it kind of hung on… so I spent a lot of my 50th birthday napping like a boss.

On the other hand, this meant I was primed for the trip out to see what remained of the Leonids. Mason and I stayed up watching old episodes of “Whose Line is It, Anyway?” until midnight and then we headed south towards the Cherry Grove Observatory that

jiawen turned us on to. We never go all the way to the observatory site, since I’d feel bad using it without being a member of the Minnesota Astronomers Society. But, we drove a few miles down Goodhue County Highway 1 and pulled over into someone’s corn field.

The first hilarious part was me, at fifty, trying to pull my fat butt onto the hood of our car. Let’s just say it took a few tries. We’d brought along several blankets and a thermos full of hot chai, but it was 20 degrees F (-6 degrees C). Even so, we weren’t going to last more than ten or fifteen minutes tops. In that short span, however, we saw three meteors. One of them had a long trail, which was fairly spectacular.

I had on a full parka, hat, mittens, and scarf, and so I was actually fairly warm. But, I could feel Mason’s shivers beside me. We’d also woken up the farm dog and its barks woke the cows. There we were in pitch darkness that was punctuated by deep lowing…. I don’t want to say it was creepy, because it was just COWS, but yeah, it was kind of creepy.

Also, the cold made me have to pee. Mason and I ended up stopping at one of those 24-hour trucker “travel” centers so I could use the bathroom and he could buy some beef jerky (which is his traditional road trip food.) We’d TRIED to stop at a McDonald’s in Cannon Falls earlier, but turns out that small town McDonald’s are NOT 24 hours. This was a bummer because Mason really had a craving for salty French fries and the beef jerky was a poor substitute, indeed.

A good adventure for the big 5-Oh, however.

Sunday was a lot of return to the usual. Shawn and I did a big grocery run to Hyvee… which, predictably, was fine for the first hour, but then, as the shop started to fill up with other Sunday grocery shoppers, became annoying. As we always do, we determined to maybe do the whole shopping for staples more than once a month. (We won’t.)

Otherwise, we’re spending a lot of time cleaning house in preparation for our Thanksgiving guests, who should be arriving on Wednesday. Today, in fact? I freaking WASHED the FRIDGE. (Who does that?) I mean, it needed it, but I’m fairly certain no one but Shawn is going to appreciate the work I did. On the other hand, I watched one and a half more episodes of Elegant Yokai Apartment Living, which I enjoyed.

Okay, well, I need to run pick up Mason. See y'all on the flip side.

I'm going to be watching the weather as the day progresses. Mason and I are making plans to try to catch the Leonids tonight, which are supposed to be at their peek some time around 3 am.

I've only seen the Leonids one other time. Several years ago, Shawn and I drove down to Norwood Young America, MN to hang out with the Minnesota Astronomer's club. The meteor shower lived up to its reputation of being spectacular. We saw hundreds of meteors, including one 'fire ball' type. We weren't there anywhere near peak time and we didn't even stay that long, probably no more than an hour (it was cold. It's always cold near my birthday in Minnesota). Plus, if I remember right, we spent much of the trip down freaking out about our car, which seemed to be having some kind of overheating problem--which I tried to fix with antifreeze... and then we spent the rest of the time worried that I'd put too much in.

Even so, I remember that trip fondly. I'd love to give Mason a similar experience. Of course, it's raining right now. We're expected to stay under fairly heavy cloud cover. But, if I'm reading the weather radar maps correctly, it does look like if we head south it's clearer. Hopefully, we'll have a patch of clear somewhere nearby tonight, too. I'm willing to drive a couple of hours out of town, if necessary. Mason is almost ALWAYS up for a road trip adventure, too.

Otherwise, the countdown to my birthday continues. Yesterday I got a terrible "present" in the form of the allegations against Sen. Al Franken. DO NOT WANT. PLEASE RETURN IMMEDIATELY. It's actually been kind of a crappy birthday week in general, if I'm honest. I hope this means that my actual day will be spectacular.

Currently, my plans for my big 5-Oh, involve meteor chasing and brunch. I LOVE breakfast out and when my birthday falls on a weekend, I insist that I get breakfast out. Sometimes we also do dinner, but, the truth is, of the two I would always rather have breakfast out. Some folks at my usual coffee shop, Claddagh, have suggested we try the Colossal Cafe on Grand Avenue. It looks amazing, so I'm currently very much leaning towards trying that. Should be fun, if Mason and I don't end up sleeping through the whole thing. :-) (It's possible that we'll still be up.)

These two nights will be the Orionid meteor shower (remnants of Hailey's comet!)

Mason and I decided that one road trip was not enough, so we headed out at 1 am in search of a clear patch of sky. We drove in the direction of the Cherry Grove observatory that the Minnesota astonomers like, intending not to go all the way, per se, but to stop somewhere on Goodhue County Highway 1 to see what could be seen. I didn't think we'd make it out of cloud cover, but somewhere around Canon Falls, MN, we started to see stars in the sky. So, I drove a little further and we pulled off in a corn field.

We just got situated on the trunk of the car when, sure enough, we saw a bright light streak across the sky. It was the only one we saw, however, because the wind picked up and the clouds rushed in.

Still. Kind of a magical moment.

If it clears up, we're going to try again tonight.

....I guess we were JUST missed by an asteroid this morning!* Apparently, TD54 came within 28,000 miles of Earth.

I think I'm glad I slept through this.

*Unnerving knowledge brought to my attention thanks to an SF Signals tweet.

Mason is out exploring LaCrosse’s Myrick Park’s “marsh trail” with my parents, while Shawn is upstairs enjoying that rare working-parent treat – an afternoon nap. I’m lying on my folk’s front porch (arguably the best room in the house) composing this to you. Oh, and just to put icing on the cake? I just discovered a wireless connection I can hop on to.

Sweet.

So, okay, let’s see. There’s much to report. Mason and I went out stargazing with

jiawen

on Thursday night. After waking Mason up at 1:00 am, we drove out east of Woodbury to a place used by an astronomy club jiawen belongs to. Mason was giddy in the car. He told me that he was “so exciting he was shivering” (although that might have been compounded by the fact I forgot to bring along a sweatshirt for him and the temperature dropped pretty low.) He danced in the backseat pretending to be MJ (Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s girlfriend.)

A quick aside: Mason is often women when he plays pretend. He loves being MJ and scolding Peter to go off and get milk for the family (Peter then runs in to all sorts of super-villains and, inevitably, comes home without the milk, which causes all sorts of hilarity.) His other favorite is Susie (Susan Storm/Richards, Invisible Woman from the Fantastic Four.) He’s even asked if he could be Invisible Woman for Halloween. (I think I have a really clever idea for the costume – getting the usual blue tights and then covering a portion of them in white cloth and drawing the dashed lines on the seams they use in the comics to show where Susie isn’t visible any more.) Shawn has been more actively trying to talk him out of this than I have. (Not the playing, mind you, just the Halloween costume.) My feeling is that he’s four. This is probably the one time in his life where he can pretend to be whatever he wants without a whole lot of social stigma.

Yet in typical pre-school honesty, Mason then also insisted in telling jiawen that she sounded like a strange man on the phone. I was fairly mortified, but jiawen seemed to take it in stride.

Mason reads gender very stereotypically. As I think I’ve reported before, anyone with long hair he tends to peg as “female.” Mozart is a woman to Mason. This isn’t always true, because he clearly recognizes our friend Steve, who has long hair, as a guy. His default is always “she,” however, and that’s totally my feminist-self’s fault. Ever since he was a baby, if we saw an animal whose gender wasn’t readily obvious (think the gigantic squirrel testes) I tended to say, “she,” because I was once harassed by a ten year-old for being sexist in my gender default during a cartooning class I was teaching.

But back to the stargazing… Mason was a little more low-key once we actually reached our destination and I suspect that had more to do with the late hour than it did the viewing experience itself. jiawen taught him to use her binoculars, and he was still talking about the Pleiades the next morning. He loved seeing Mars and told his Mom all about it the next morning. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to bring warmer clothes for myself and Mason. The field we were in was quite covered in dew and he got cold and wet pretty quickly.

The next morning, we had an open house at Mason’s new school, Crossroads Science. Once again, we had to drag Mason out of there. We played in the I-Zone for several minutes and then ran upstairs and spent nearly an entire hour in the library. The library, which we somehow had not visited previously, is, in a word, AWESOME. Mason was literally running in circles screaming, “I love this place! I love this place!” which pleased the school librarian no end.

We sat in the various comfy nooks they had around (did I mention the soft cooshie chairs? The skylights with natural light? The millions of books?) and read books Mason pulled from the stacks in giddy delight. I introduced myself to the librarian and we made arrangements so that every Monday Mason and I could come in to check out books. We can go either before school starts or after. Mason is so stoked. He keeps reminding me of the books he wants to check out first.

I think Mason is finally truly excited about school. Previously, he’s been saying that he’s scared of all the new things, and, of course, I’m worried about his lack of social skills and the fact that he tends to come out of the bathroom without his pants on…. But, that’s in a lot of ways what Pre-K is for. Mason will be learning how to get along with others and how to be IN SCHOOL.

But, I’m so grateful jiawen is willing to have Mason tag along for astronomy nights. I keep thinking how lucky he is to have a chance to actually see the planets he reads about in books. He had huge tears when he found out that Mommy couldn’t come on Thursday night because she had to work in the morning. He really wants to share Mars with her. Now his big goal is to see Venus.

Rachel K. invited my family out for stargazing Monday night. When I asked Mason about it, he got hopping excited. Can we see Pluto? Can we see Uranus? How about Jupiter? Saturn? Then, when I told him that Rachel couldn’t even get started until after midnight, I thought he was going to burst with excitement. Up past midnight…? *swoon*

Shawn really wanted to come along, too, but she’s been awfully tired lately. (It’s partly my fault. I’ve been keeping her up late for several nights in a row – wink, wink, nudge, nudge, knowwhatImean, knowwhatImean?) Anyway, we put Mason to bed at his usual time (around 7:00/8:00 pm). Shawn played with our new external hard drive (FreeAgent… whoo, the yellow bar looks like a cylon…whooo,) while I avoided work on the official revisions for “her” ROMANCING THE DEAD (although I did begin a bit. I’ve got some gnarly pacing problems to deal with, alas.)

At eleven thirty, I couldn’t wake up Mason. I told Shawn that I was thinking about heading out by myself, alone. I got ready and started up the car. I sat in front of the house with the car running, thinking. Would a good parent let her kid sleep in? After all, tomorrow was a school day (albeit only a fun summer class “Castles and Dragons.”) Or, was the better parent thing to whip on the light and drag the boy out to see something fairly spectacular? Believe it or not, I chose option number 2. I tried to wake up Shawn, too, but she had crashed hard. In retrospect, I should have whipped on Shawn’s light too. She was awfully sad to have missed Mason’s first astronomy moment.

Mason woke up completely by the time he got in the car. Then he got right giddy. There were a lot of odd pre-schooler observations: “Do you think we’ll see a Wobeggong?” (A type of coral reef shark that’s nocturnal). “I’ll be everyone’s going to Edina to the McDonalds!” (He once noticed they had a sign that said they were open twenty-four hours.)

After meeting up with Rachel, we went off to the MLK Park in Minneapolis. Not probably not the best in terms of light pollution, but I’d previously insisted that we stay somewhat close by for our first experience since I did have to try to get Mason back to sleep and I was afraid a long drive would either make him fall back asleep before viewing or keep him awake too long afterward. It was pretty perfect for a first time. The park was deserted. Rachel had Mason look first at Jupiter. Her telescope is large enough that, with some squinting, you can see the gas swirls on the planet surface. I thought I caught an image of the red storm, but I could have hallucinated it. Mason was so excited to see Jupiter’s moons; he leaped around like Bambi in the meadow. He said, “I LOVE looking at Jupiter! I love it!” Rachel was really good at encouraging him to be patient with observing, and I think it paid off. By the time we’d looked at the surface of the moon, Antares, and a binary star, Mason was so wild he just wanted run around like a tornado. We turned the game into planet crashes and then galaxy crashes… which may have baffled Rachel a bit, but it was Mason’s expression of extreme joy.

I hope that we were respectful enough of her things that we get invited back. As soon as we woke up the next morning Mason said, “Can we call Rachel and go stargazing again?”

Even so, when I asked Mason if he now wanted to be an astronaut or astronomer when he grew up, he said, “Nope. I’d still rather dig up dinosaur bones.” I said, “Well, maybe you could do that on the Moon.”

“Yeah!”

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Day in the Life of an Idiot

Journal of Lyda Morehouse

Entries tagged with stargazing

Meteors

Meteors!

Birthday Report and Whatnot

Meteors for my Birthday

Meteor Chasing

Um, Eek?

School and Mars!

When Planets Collide