by Bob Czerwinski
Arrived very early, setting up my lawn chair over on the observatory side of the park, over near the rail fence. Besides beating the crowd <grin>, I wanted to see if I could catch any of those 8:00pm'ish skimmers, but didn't see a single one. Still pretty gunky overhead at 8:00pm, with the Moon about 35-deg. above the horizon in major haze-mode, but the high stuff was definitely pushing to the south.
Catnapped in the Jeep for a few hours, and started keeping a serious eye on things around 1:45am. By this time the sky was very clear, but there was a 10-degree up-from-the-horizon skyglow virtually everywhere you looked, regardless of direction. Reminiscent of a "low" version of the Salinas Auto-Mall skyglow which we usually see from the SW Lot. A haze/light-fog layer was visible below the Peak to the north, stretching back to the South Bay. For the morning show I moved my lawn chair over to the east side of the shop building, blocking out the Moon. Had a decent sky view, running from Leo's tail up and over to Orion's shield, say about 60% of the sky. I'd estimate the limiting magnitude at the zenith was about 4.2. The Beehive (M44) was just visible with averted vision. At about 2:30am I was averaging a meteor every ten-seconds or so, but the rate increased dramatically around 2:45am, sometimes with as many as about ten meteors over a ten-second time period, often two or three at once. Right then I thought I'd made a quick time-trip back to 2001! Sometimes there might be another ten- to thirty-seconds where I'd see nothing at all, immediately followed by several in a row again. Most of the meteors I observed were relatively close to the radiant, say within 60-deg. or so, so it's clear I was missing many of the dimmer items, even though I caught some great streakers running through Orion. (*&^%$# Moon!) I'd say the best of show was from about 2:40am-2:50am. Consensus says the peak rate probably hit 600~700/hour. A bolide overhead about 2:10am - I didn't note the exact time - lit up the place like a camera flash, catching everybody's attention. Although I immediately started counting seconds, I never heard any associated sound.
I stayed at the Peak until about 5:40am, catching Leonids up 'til the last minute. Very light visitor turnout over at the observatory. Ron Dammann had the Challenger 'scope up and running for public viewing; it was on Jupiter when I took in the view around 4:00am. (Jupiter was pretty mushy; relatively poor seeing.) Some folk had film cameras set up over on the new observing pads, recording the night's events. Over on the Coulter Row side, the SW Lot was closed to vehicle traffic, so folk just parked in the Coulter area or along the road, and then walked up to the SW Lot. I have no idea how many people were over there. Although I didn't make it over to Coulter or the SW Lot after 8:00pm, I was later told that the Coulter area was filled with cars. I watched Mars and Spica rise, eventually followed by Venus. Thanks to a mention by Pat Donnelly et al., I caught the ISS passing through Leo Minor about 5:16am, moving from the NW to the SE, following it to within 1-deg. of the horizon, just below Corvus. Now I *think* I caught the tail end of an Iridium flare about a minute later, 5:17am'ish, maybe 25-deg. above the southern horizon, but I'd need somebody to confirm this.
According to my RadioShack monitor, the temperature/humidity about 2:00am was 45F/46%, 3:00am 46F/41%, 5:00am 55F/22%, and 5:30am 57F/12%. I missed the 4:00pm period, hanging out at the observatory, but had to unzip my jacket as the temperature was definitely on the rise.
Overall, it was a fine shower. If it weren't for La Luna, it would have been a *great* shower! Following Pat D. down the hill, we reached a kid in distress; dead battery in his vehicle. Good thing I had the Jeep with me; out came the jumper cables, canceling a call to AAA. :)