I had an enjoyable and interesting evening. First, as I drove down the Dublin grade, it looked as if the cloud cover extended over Pleasanton and even Livermore. I was getting ready to turn back, but I saw the cloud cover getting thinner to the SE, so I drove on. I got to the BP station at 580 & Vasco and pulled over to look out my window, and sure enough, it had cleared up. So onward I went to Del Valle.

As I pulled up the climb to our favorite spot, I saw dozens of cars parked along the roadside. At first, I thought there must be some sort of event at the lake, but then it dawned on me that they had come to watch the Perseids (sometimes I'm slow...). Nobody was parked at our spot, so I pulled in and got out, stretched, looked up for a moment or two, then walked about 50 feet to the next van. We said our hellos, then chatted for several minutes about the shower, the moon, etc. I mentioned that I had been there the previous week taking photos, and this other guy immediately said, "Are you Paul?" My jaw nearly hit the gravel. Turns out it was Greg Zamira, a new TACer who lives in San Leandro. He remembered that I had posted a message about the photos from DV, and he put two and two together.

He said there had been some bright fireballs but not a lot of activity. His wife and two kids were asleep in the van, so he soon took off. I settled onto the chaise lounge with my blanket wrapped around me and binoculars in hand. There weren't many shooters but I did enjoy the ones I saw. Using the binoculars was, as always, great fun, and even more so thanks to the lounge.

The highlight of the evening for me was simply lying there, looking up at the stars. I began thinking about the light from these suns making its way so far through space to us, and how they made such glorious pinpricks against the darkness. What a miracle that light can travel so far, that these suns pour out so much light, that everything fell into place just so, and the result is our beautiful nighttime sky! These facts and more seemed so improbable that the whole night sky felt fragile, as if at any moment some subtle, infinitesimal change might occur to a law of nature, and the stars go black forever!

Around midnight, there was a sudden darkening of the sky, and I turned to see the orange moon as it retired closer and closer to the fog rolling over the hilltops. I was surprised at how quick and distinct the darkening was. I set up my camera and took a few photos of the moon as it descended into the fog. I really enjoyed the amusing sight of the last horn of the quarter moon sticking up through the fog, like a Satyr going to bed for the night!

I decided to try a star-trail photo to see if I could capture any meteors. I tried a 15 min exposure just to the left of Cass. After that, my equipment was beginning to get wet so I didn't try anymore. Of course, about one minute after I closed the shutter, a lovely fireball came nearly straight down from the eastern part of Cass! I guess I wasn't alone, Murphy was right there beside me.

So I packed up and drove home, a tired but happy observer.