Last night we were supposed to be able to see a meteor shower if it wasn’t too cloudy.
The local weatherman had a Hell of a time trying to pronounce Camelopardian, a name meaning the meteors came from Camelopardis, a wedge-shaped constellation in the northern sky.
Camelopardis was named by an astronomer in the 1600s who thought it resembled the camel that Rebecca rode into Canaan in the book of Genesis. Apparently, he was better at astronomy than etymology – Camelopardis was actually the Latin word for a Giraffe.
Since the best chance of seeing a meteor was between one and three this morning, I had no intention of being up to watch. As luck would have it, I did wake up about 2:30, so I went out and watched for a while.
There were some thin clouds, but the stars were plainly visible, so I thought I had a pretty good chance. I did see the entire sky light up twice in brief flashes similar to heat lightning, but I never saw a meteor.
After ten minutes or so, I began to feel like those men in Huckleberry Finn who paid to see the Camel-Leopard. If the weatherman had been around , he might have been in danger of tar and feathers.
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