The best meteor I saw last night, while well wrapped up and standing in the neighbouring field, burned for about two seconds with an orange glow and left a visible trail of smoke.

UPDATE. I’ve just added a photo I took a couple of minutes ago. It’s been a long night, with little sleep and a heavy cold, but it is still hard to be in a grump when a night of meteor showers is replaced with a scene like this. The thin crescent moon, two days off new, hanging low in the pinks and oranges of a winter southeastern dawn sky.

Last Friday was a full moon and no ordinary full moon either. It was a perigee full moon, when the moon passes closest to the earth and appears a lot larger than normal. On Friday evening it was due to be the largest full moon that we had seen for 50 years. There were also due to be meteors from the Germinid showers.

I am not generally a hugely superstitious creature, although I do enjoy reading about the historical and cultural associations surrounding sky omens. At the end of last week it was easier for me to see how these connections and beliefs have evolved. The talk was very much in my diary and my mind for the days leading up to it and so if truth be told I did not especially welcome unusual celestial goings-on. I was grateful for once that the weather was atrocious and blotted out the sky. I know, this is a sort of vulgar and egotistical navel-gazing, a rather base and vain belief that the moon and meteors could care less what I was up to of a Monday evening.

As it happened the stage did not open up and swallow me, the audience did not metamorphosise into dragons and scorch me with their flames. They gave me a generous round of applause and headed off to the bar in the Map Room for a nip of something to brace against the elements. Even if the omens did not seem portentous on this occasion I think I will forever have a greater sympathy for the historical figures who read so much into them.