by Brian Harvey
Arrived at 11:30 p.m. while Jay Freeman was packing up his equipment. I should have arrived around 10:45, but I realized that I was getting low on gas while I started treaking up the hill to the Peak.
I didn't think that I would have had enough gas to make it to the top and back down to Hollister, so I turned back down and headed to the ONLY gas station in San Juan Bautista. CLOSED. So I had to head back to Hollister, fill my tank, and head back up to the Peak.
When I arrived, Jay was pretty much ready to leave, so I headed to the Observatory.
On Friday/Saturday night, I was more interested in viewing the shower than setting up my scope. I had heard that there were people taking "official" counts of meteors for NASA, so I headed up to chat with them. There was about 4 people counting and charting and 1 was using the Peaks 30" scope.
I don't think I could have timed my arrival any better. Once I got up to the observatory, it was almost approching 70+ and hour. There were some extremely bright ones falling. Some as bright as Saturn and Jupiter and leaving incredible trails.
After a while, I had the opportunity to view Saturn through the 30" reflector. OMG! What an incredible view! I could not believe the amount of detail I was seeing. Although, viewing was not as great as it could have been, It was still and incredible view.
What a great Hobby!