Coming Soon to a Dark-Outdoor-Space Near You: The Perseids

Early next Tuesday morning should be the best time to view the Perseid meteor shower (weather-permitting, of course). Dust from the tail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle will hit the earth's atmosphere at well over 100,000 mph to display bright streaks in the night sky. If you are a serious stargazer, you may consider camping out all night beginning at 9:00 p.m. For those of us who enjoy sleeping or have previous commitments (yay, Monday night trivia!), the best viewing will begin once the moon has set at 2:00 a.m. the morning of August 12th.

So, where to view, where to view...

We need an open space, not to far from the apartment hopefully without too much light. It's hard to know what has a lot of light and what doesn't. When I was a kid, we had an awesome view of a meteor shower on the high school soccer field, so something like that'd be a possibility.

Or the park on Eastern Ave. in Arlington apparently called Robbins Farm. It's an awesome place for viewing man's fireworks over Boston, maybe you could catch a glimpse of nature's as well. Except it might be too bright.

How about Danehy Park in Cambridge? Should be nice if it's not too well lit at night. There's a very clear hill you can stand on top of and try to find the stars in the city, but could easily be too bright. Also, they've had some mugging problems.

The clear choice for me I think will be the reservation where we tend our community garden -- Rock Meadow -- the place that hasn't made it onto google maps at all yet. No green blob. No name. Just empty space that only reveals the paths and garden plots in satellite view. There are no lights to speak of and with a little flashlight, hopefully we'll be able to see the path well enough to get to the middle of the meadow on the path and away from the city lights.

Note to self: Must remember the bugspray.