Autumn is a great time of year to camp in the desert. The days are warm instead of blistering, and the nights are cool but not freezing. If you're going to desert camp at all this season, then this is the right weekend: the weatherman says expect clear skies for the peak of the Leonid meteor showers on Saturday night, Nov. 18.

OK, there's really some good news and some bad news about the Leonids. The good news is that they'll peak at a whopping 150 meteors per hour. The bad news is that Arizona will be pointed at the wrong part of space for us to see the peakest peak; those lucky dogs on the east coast get to see that at around midnight Saturday night. But even so, we can expect to see a meteor every couple of minutes, and you don't need any equipment or actually have to do anything to enjoy the meteor shower while camping, other than to set the alarm on your wristwatch. In the dark early hours before dawn just lay in your sleeping bag, look towards the east and watch the show. Maybe you can even get your girlfriend to make you a cuppa hot tea.

The meteors are little more than grains of space sand that burn up when they hit the earth's atmosphere at a few thousand miles per hour. This “sand” is in the wakes left by multiple passages of comet Tempel-Tuttle, through which our planet passes once a year in our own trip around the sun. Some years we hit the wakes just right, creating better-than-usual light shows; 1998-2002 were the best years in recent times. They're called Leonids because our angle of interception makes them appear to come from the constellation of Leo (which will still be below our horizon Saturday night when the shower peaks).

Isn't science cool? I like to think about those tiny bits of comet zinging around out there for five billion years and then intercepting us at just the perfect time and place for me to see them self-immolate at the instant I'm watching. Space is big and time is endless and I'm so insignificant and it just makes my mind all wonky. Which is a good time to be lying down in a sleeping bag in the desert.