First Meteor Shower of 2011 Peaks Tonight

What better way to start off the new year than by seeing what's expected to be one of the most spectacular meteor showers this year?  The Quadrantids/Bootids come every early January, and if you're away from the city lights you could see up to 100 meteors per hour in tonight's peak during the wee hours.  This shower's also supposed to have an above average number of super bright ones too.  To catch the action head to a place where you can see the stars in the Little Dipper - if you can - and set up facing the end of the Big Dipper's handle, with the horizon just at the bottom of your line of sight.  This will be more or less where the meteors are coming from, although they'll be streaking across the whole sky. Very excited to see this, especially since it's looking like SF will finally be having a clear night!

Total Lunar Eclipse and Winter Solstice

Today is the winter solstice, and boy am I glad that the days will be getting longer now!  Last night there was also a full lunar eclipse, the first time these two events have coincided since 1638, and only the second time this has happened in the Common Era.  I don't know if you managed to catch it, but it was an incredible sight to see.  Luckily the San Francisco fog cleared up enough to see it for the most part, and if you missed it head on over to Wired to see some pics of the crazy red-orange moon.