Once a part of old Monterey County, Mercey Hot Springs is just beyond the southwest San Benito County Border in Fresno County. Yet, it is connected by a common mountain range, water table, road and history to San Benito County, home of our usual observing site at Fremont Peak State Park and Observatory, housing the 30 inch Challenger Telescope. To the south on Panoche Road past the Llanada Ranch is Little Panoche Road (also known as Rt. J1). It cuts through the Glaucophane Ridge, a minor formation of the Diablo Range, and empties into the San Joaquin Valley. The little road can't be missed, as it is the only left immediately after the Little Panoche Inn, the only public watering hole for miles.
The springs were first used by native North Americans. Legend has it, according to a 1916 Evening Freelance, that Indians would travel all the way from San Diego to visit the springs. Carrying their weary brethren nearly 450 miles to the famed spring, they undoubtedly let their tired feet enjoy its healing properties, too. The excerpt above was in the May 6, 1993 issue of the Pinnacle, a local paper.
On Monday, November 16th six brave souls drove up to 150 miles through the heavy clouds after watching dismal weather forecasts on the internet. Mark Taylor finally threw his hands up and said "You decide ...it could go either way". Cutting accross the Pacheco Pass, rolling down Interstate 5 to Little Panoche Road, on we traveled to Mercey Hot Springs. Humming Jerry Lee Lewis's hit from the past, Great Balls of Fire, we gathered in hopes that the Great Leonid Meteor Storm would sprinkle a little stardust our way to be captured in our cameras, our recording logs and our imaginations.
First to arrive were Chris Angelos and Sandra Macika. Sandra was the coordinator for this site - one of three organized by Dr. Peter Jenniskens, SJAA Amateur and Meteor guy Mike Koop and Chris Angelos, who were hoping to put some organization and observing methods into place. Those guys were preparing to fly over the clouds in the far east with the Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign, an airborne astrobiology mission to observe the Leonids over Okinawa.
Sandra brought meteor counting and plotting forms and instructions. She also brought DMS Gnomic Charts of the Heavens, which doubled as meteor plotting forms and star charts for our continuous visual magnitude assessments. We gathered at the steam baths to watch the storm but instead the storm gathered more steam, putting a damper on the visual observing part of the evening.
Next to arrive were a couple Sidewalk Astronomers, far from the sidewalk this evening. Jonathan Wilkendorf can usually be found at 24th and Sanchez in San Francisco mooning with his 16 inch scope, and at dark sky star parties from Point Reyes to Harbin Hot Springs to the Grand Canyon and points in-between. I brought clip boards, cassette recorders, pencils, malted milk balls, a shortwave radio for WWV time stamps to overlay our recorded exclamations, and my ever present 12.5 inch LITEBOX telescope. If our luck held out, I hoped to offer Sandra the opportinity to catch M77 in Cetus, her final Messier object.
While eagerly praying for breaks in the clouds and waiting for the last two of our merry band of Meteor Marathoners to arrive we arranged ourselves in a kidney shaped oval. This intrepid group was sure prepared. We had two queen sized air mattresses. Sandra and I did our best to perform a special rain-away dance while pumping the mattress full of air with a foot pump. We had pillow wedges. We had soy nuts. Were we nuts? You be the judge.
Mojo (Morris Jones) arrived at about midnight with another queen sized air mattress and sleeping bags. Will (Galloway)arrived shortly thereafter with some more cameras, completing the group. Fate cruelly tempted us all night. While preparing ourselves by reading the charts, we were able to look up at a beautiful milky way. An airbrushed silvery river of light overhead to lift our spirits. And then just as we tested our limiting magnitude, the clouds swooshed over, giving us limited magnitude. So we listened to the clock tick off the Universal Coordinated time hour by hour. Finally we felt we had a chance for observing. I observed many mosquitoes, but for some reason, those little bugs bit the others and not me. Chris set up Peter Jenniskens camera arrays hoping to capture a sweeping 360 view of the sky, backed up by our visual reports and plots. I even set up my LITEBOX, and Chris and Mojo set up the cameras and loaded in the film. They were optimistic - they were crazy!! Alas these wishful observing tasks brought on the clouds. From midnight till 4 am our weather ran the gamut from clear and warm to cold and wet. We could'nt even keep our charts from dewing over. It was THAT wet. I crawled into my sleeping mag, flashlight in hand, just like I did at summer camp oh so many years ago, and read my charts in the warm enclosed air. Dainty raindrops soon were tap tap tapping on the outside of the sleeping bag. They made such a racket! We never were able to do much more than plot a few of the brighter meteors, holler "oh wow" into our tape recorders, when the cloudy sky brightened from a magnitude -8 fireball. And there were plenty of really bright Mag -5 or brighter fireballs. We had alot of fun tho.And I'd try it again, given the same forecast.
The rain scared everyone away at about 4:30 am. We had seen lots of meteors, and although the clouds prevented any good camera work, we were prepared, had the right observing tools and had such good company it was alot of fun and an adventure.
On the way down the road, we began seeing a really nice clearing, and many meteors. Mojo and I stopped our car. Jonathan pulled in right behind us. We arrayed ourselves upright against the car door, polar aligning our heads and necks. We each faced a differend direction. We took out the charts, the pencils, the shortwave. We looked up.
At 12:55 a double flash split by one degree changed color from yellow to orange. 15 degrees from Corvus - 12:59 UTC - yellow to orange to red a whopper. A huge audible WOW emanated from my cassette recorder in three part harmony - three happy meteor observers in awe of the unfolding spectacle. 10 degrees above Corvus a horizontal meteor a split second later. Then another. And another.
A few notes from Jonathan's writeup during this incredible shower..."We used a micro-cassette and WWV radio for recording the timings. My TEFF was 60% of the time from 12:53 to 13:01, with about 90% visibility for the area covered on DMS gnomonic chart 3 (Leo-Taurus-Orion-Canis Major). My limiting magnitude estimate was 15 stars in area 8 (northern Taurus), the same as for Jane. Our observing location was on the roadside, about 8.5 miles from the center of the bridge on I-5."
We saw a couple dozen leonids within a span of about 15 minutes, capped with the brilliant Zodiacal Light, a cone of light pointing toward the milky way above.
It was time for the drive home, after a surprising and thrilling ending to a meteorically challenged night. But no all nighter is complete without a breakfast stop - and where better than Casa De Fruta on the Pacheco Pass. I'd like to report that we rushed home and continued daylight observing for fireballs, but I'd be lying. It was cloudy anyway, I think.
If you are out in the middle of nowhere and need a hot bath, try Mercey Hot Springs. If you are in need of a Leonid meteor shower instead, you'll just have to wait till next year, and hope for a better show.