Yeah, and while you can get above it you're still often fucked.

We had some wicked Quadrantids some years ago and I schlepped the camera (and some cocoa, and some bourbon, and a tripod) out to Gold Bar, a good hour, hour and a half up into the Cascades. It was beautiful. Twice, the stupid things were close enough to hear - I've never experienced anything like it before or since, where you watch this streak and it goes out and a couple seconds later you hear this hollow THWOK and it reverberates just a little. And I lit three, maybe four rolls of Superia 1600 and took it in. Said "take good care of this stuff, there's meteors on it!" and waited.

Came back two days later and they handed me four empty envelopes. Said there was nothing on them, it was all dark. I said "yeah, it was astrophotography." Guy behind the counter's eyes got big. Wandered back to the garbage can and pulled out a fistful of badly-developed film, splotchy and fucked. We looked at it together.

They woulda been great shots.

I used to give them about $100 a month. I've given them zero ever since.