Take a course on astronomy and observe a meteor shower.

“I decided to take Thursday, the 13th off of work and camp out of the back of my truck with my two boys and some hot cocoa. As soon as I got off work Wednesday, we piled into the truck and made the 2-hour drive to the Jemez Wilderness. By the time we arrived at around 8PM, meteors were already making brilliant green streaks across the sky and it still wasn’t completely dark. I backed my truck eastward into a meadow and got our sleeping bags set up in the truck bed just in time for the evening to get dark. As the boys watched, I set up my camera. Every few seconds, one of them would call out “There’s one!” There were so many meteors, we lost count.”

“A little after midnight, my camera battery died. I decided to switch over to my second camera, a Canon EOS 70D. I had an ultra-wide lens with me to try out with that body. I decided to try to shoot a time-lapse and then go to sleep until the sun came up about 4 hours later, but at this point, the meteors had gotten so bright and frequent I simply couldn’t close my eyes. I just had to keep looking. [...] When I later looked through the frames at home and saw the cloud for the first time, I literally jumped out of my chair and laughed. My boys loved it and still talk about it. I was hooked, and I’ve made an attempt to watch the Perseids every year since.”

“The first time I watched the Perseids shower, I didn’t expect to see anything. I forgot the cold soon enough, and the stars that streaked by every so often seemed to push time along — I just kept sitting there to wait for one more. I am not a patient person by nature, and although I will not aggressively bother others who are working “slow,” by my definition, I do get frustrated at my own unproductivity.”