Anthony Adamovich, a member of the Headwaters Chapter living in Luray, invited me to help with a December 14 presentation on the Geminid meteor shower led by Megan Goin and Samantha House, rangers at Shenandoah River State Park. The park is situated between Luray and Front Royal, overlooking bends of the South Fork. I had scouted out the location in the daytime a few days before and was struck by the beauty of a park that I had hitherto not been aware of. There were Common Mergansers in the river and a multitude of Eastern Bluebirds.

It was a chilly night, yet the rangers estimated a total attendance of about 60, some from as far away as Arlington. We enjoyed a completely clear and windless night. The meteors made up in brightness what they lacked in numbers. I set up two telescopes, a conventional 4″ refractor and a computerized scope that takes photographs in real time. Most of the children and many adults had never looked through a telescope nor seen the Milky Way in a really good night sky. Samantha   gave a presentation on the Geminid shower, and its origin in debris trailing from the active asteroid Phaethon. She explained that the optimal time for viewing these showers is in the early A.M. hours, when our location on Earth has rotated to be on the leading edge of its orbit. This is of course not practical for adults who must get up for work nor for their school-age children. 

We are hoping to offer similar events next year on favorable nights.The park is well-located for those living to the north who wish to behold a proper night sky. I think this is one of  the best ways to get people to care about preserving our dark skies.

– Zack Perdue, Cohort VII, December 2023

Photos by Zack. On the right is an image of the Great Nebula in Orion and on the left is an image of the Pleiades. “The haziness around the Pleiades isn’t an artifact, but is the dust cloud out of which the young (only 100 million year-old) stars formed.” – Zack