Mary van Balen

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At 12:30a.m. I slipped on my long, almost to the ankles down coat and stepped outside into the very cold night. I had not planned on staying up to view the Geminid meteor shower. The cloudy afternoon sky left over from the first real snow the day before had showed no sign of clearing, but sometime between 5:30 and 9, it did.

The neighborhood was quiet. No cars driving by to crunch the icy streets. Christmas lights from a few houses glowed brightly against white snow-flocked bushes and trees. I remembered childhood Christmases celebrated in this same neighborhood. Our Jewish neighbors had four children. Debbie told me years later that she and Julian stayed up on Christmas Eves and peered down through their second floor window into our living room where Mom and Dad were decorating our tree. She wished for a Christmas tree. I had wished for the eight-day gift giving of Hanukah. Read More 

PHOTO: Sky & Telescope / Dennis Di Cicco

I stayed up late last night and set my alarm for 3am this morning to watch the Perseid meteor shower, and, as Alan MacRobert of Sky & Telescope wrote in his blog, even in a big city, I was not disappointed. I stood in the driveway, leaned against the garage, and eventually laid uncomfortably on the wooden bench swing to watch brilliant bits of debris left by the Swift-Tuttle comet in years past streak through the sky. Mac Robert’s blog said that some filaments left by the comet centuries ago – 441 and 1479 – might come into play this night. My mind reels at the thought. Read More