Every once in a while, I get a shot I know I’ll remember forever. There’s always a story behind each one, usually some ridiculous journey that I embark on myself or some anecdote about being struck by some revelation about composition. The story behind this milky way shot, however, is different.

There was some buzz about the potentially dazzling Camelopardalids meteor shower last Friday (5/23/14). The predicted peak time fell conveniently at 11 pm, the forecast was clear, the moon was rising late, and I found a suitable viewing spot on Camino Cielo in the mountains. So… why not! I prepped my camera for a hard-core hundred-shot composite frame, just in case.

I mentioned it to my coworker, and she told me how her 12-year-old son Frank was a huge fan of space. You know, like he has posters of galaxies plastered on his walls and glowing stars hanging on strings from his ceiling. He’s seen Saturn in a telescope at the museum. He talks about space all the time. After school, we gave him a call to ask if he wanted to go watch a meteor shower that night. Reportedly you could hear Frank’s eyes light up through the phone.

We rendezvoused, drove up, walked a bit, settled in, laid there on our backs in the calm of night, and waited for the show to start. We waited, and waited, and waited some more… but the shower never really came. I even put away my camera and let myself enjoy space without worry (the shot I took on the walk back when I spotted that ridge of trees, whatever). We saw maybe only ten meteors in almost two hours, which was disappointing. Still, one meteor was truly spectacular, by far the brightest one I’ve ever seen. It streaked across an entire constellation, and its trail lingered in the sky for seconds. We got so excited that we high fived each other!

Maybe it was a disappointment to some of us, say someone like me expecting a hailstorm of meteors on par with the Perseids. But do you think it was a disappointment to Frank? You know, galaxies-on-wall and stars-on-ceiling 12-year-old Frank? It was his first adventure out of the city to admire the night sky. It was the most stars he’s ever seen, his first time hiking by starlight, his first ever shooting star. Nah, I think he will remember this adventure.