by Jerry Elmer
After being on vacation for 10 days, this is my first opportunity to send in this report.
I arrived in Death Valley National Park on Saturday afternoon, 11-17-01 about 3pm. The temperature was about 78F at Stovepipe Wells, and stayed between 70 and 80 in the day while I was there, and during my subsequent trek to Las Vegas and the Salton Sea. I had decided to camp at the Mesquite Springs campground at the northern end of the park, several miles south of Scotty's Castle, in order to be away from all the commercial lights at the other valley campsites. There were about 11 sites occupied out of some 30 or 40 (?). I found out later that there was one other amateur astronomer there, although I never got a chance to talk to him. The campsite is at elevation 1800 feet, so it is somewhat cooler there than in the lower valley areas. The sky is completely dark, with only a faint glow to the southeast, probably from Beatty, Nevada. No clouds!! It is very easy to walk around the campsite with no light save from the stars.
I started observing as soon as it got dark, but didn't start counting meteors until about 6:30pm. From then until 7:30, I saw about 6, with the first very bright one at 7:30 going parallel to the northwest horizon about 15 degrees up. Bright yellow!! As the evening went on, the temperature dropped progressively, and the wind came up when the sun went down. By 9pm the temperature was about 45 degrees, and the wind was a steady 10mph or so with gusts up to maybe 20. The wind never stopped blowing until about 10am Sunday, and the stars twinkled all night; definitely not good telescope weather. I had my Televue Pronto set up for about two hours, but took it down in favor of looking at meteors.
>From 7:30 to 8:30, I saw about 8 meteors, and from 8:30 to 10:30 only about 5. At 10:30, I was beginning to fade away and decided to sack out for a while. When I looked out my tent door at 12:30am, the sky was filled with bright meteors in every direction. I got up to find the temperature had dropped down to about 40, and still constant wind. Meteors were everywhere in the sky, and I spent my time slowly turning around in a circle. It didn't matter which direction I looked, they were everywhere. I didn't bother trying to count them, there were just too many, and most were very easily seen; not very many of those dim ones where you wonder if you really saw something or not. This is not surprising, as it was very difficult to tell the constellations for the number of stars visible. Some of the naked eye objects I could see were: M31, M33, M35, M37, M38, M41.
As the night progressed, the frequency of the meteors increased, until, between about 2:15 and 2:45, there was barely more than a couple of seconds between sightings. On many occasions I saw 3 to 5 meteors at once streaking across the sky as if they were fighter jets in formation speeding by, only to explode into pieces and disappear. On one occasion I saw six at once, all seemingly in parallel. Many of them were exotic colors: three were bright red, 5 or 6 brilliant orange, a couple blue, and many yellow or green. On about 5 occasions, there were brilliant green ones that went by behind me, out of my vision, that lit up the campground with an eerie green illumination casting ghostlike shadows for a couple of seconds. One of these was so big that the smoke trail lasted almost 10 minutes, and I watched it in my binoculars as it swirled and changed shape in the middle of Auriga. I also watched as several broke up into multiple fragments, shooting off in different directions. Sometimes I could see 8 or 10 visible at the same time, some just starting as others burned out, not knowing how many more were behind me.
As 3am approached, the meteors seemed to lull for a while, although never stopping. By then, there may have been as much as 15 or 20 seconds between sightings, many still multiple, although definitely diminished in numbers from before. Then it started to pick up again, and, although never quite reaching the fervor of the 2:15 to 2:45 peak, there was a definite second peak which I could see picking up about 3:15am. I watched until I couldn't stay awake any more, about 4am, then turned in for the night as still more meteors streaked by.
At 1:30am or so, about everyone else in the campsite got up. Since they were mostly novices, they ALL turned on lights. The people in RV's turned on the lights inside and some outdoor floodlights, the tenters lit up Coleman lanterns, and one person had his pick-up truck headlights on. Then there were flashlights all over creation. A short time later, someone tried photographing the night sky -- with flash bulbs!! I finally hiked about a quarter mile up the access road to a hilltop and got away from all the lights. By the time I went back to my tent at 4am, they were all out. When I got up, about 10:30, there were only 4 other campsites occupied.
The following night I saw about a dozen from dark to 10:30 or so, but the temperature was 40 or slightly below, and the wind was blowing maybe 20 constantly, with gusts to 35. My tent rattled and shook until I went out to tighten it up and pile up some rocks for a windbreak near the front of my tentfly. The third night I moved to Stovepipe Wells. There was no wind, and the temperature was about 55, quite an improvement except for all the floodlights from the motel and store. The Stovepipe Wells campsite has a clay soil which is in the form of a fine powder that billows up around your feet after every step; it is the filthiest campsite I have ever been in. There is also an over zealous and quite belligerant camp "host" who accosted me after I had been there about 20 minutes and accused me of trying to "lounge around without paying". I think this campsite should be avoided in the future. I didn't see much at this location, as it clouded up that night and didn't clear up until after 2am.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. I don't know exactly how many meteors I saw, but it may have been 1000 give or take some. A thoroughly wonderful experience, and well worth the effort to get to Death Valley.