Last night I waited until the moon set, in anticipation of catching the annual Leonid light show. As it was the moon didn't hit the horizon until about 3 AM.

The Leonids are a series of rock, dust, and ice particles that are debris left from a comet. As Earth nears this debris field, it's gravitational pull draws these particles into the atmosphere. As the force of gravity increases, these particles pick up speed, melt, and leave the trails commonly known as "shooting stars".

I had intended to take some long exposure pictures and figured at the very least, I could get some star trails streaking across the blackened background of the sky. So I grabbed, the tripod and the DSLR and headed out.

I bundled up expecting it to be cold and knowing I was going to be out there for a while, but found it be a mild 40-something degrees rather than the bone-numbing chill I had expected. Super! I can work with this.

I figured I would assemble the tripod outside since Dad was snoring and I didn't wish to wake him. Once I got it out of the bag, I noticed the baseplate that screws into the camera body was missing. Great!

I ask Melissa where it is, since I have never used this tripod. She goes searching for it with no success. Damn, I really wanted to play with the camera some and was hopeful for a meteor shot.

Oh well, I put the tripod back, but keep the camera in case I can find someplace to set it up that it would be stable enough to take a long exposure shot. I looked in the area the Leonids were supposed to emanate from, but didn't notice any action in the 10 minutes I stood there.

I would've stayed longer and likely would have seen SOMEthing before headed back in, but there was significant cloud cover moving in from the west, which drives our weather patterns. There was no break visible on the horizon, so I reluctantly gave up and headed to bed without my picture(s). Maybe next year.