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by Paul LeFevre
I arrived at Lake Sonoma last night [Friday, 13 Aug 1999] at about 12:45 AM (so I guess that would actually make it this morning) after only about 2 hours of sleep...there was nobody else in sight. As soon as I got out of the car, though, I knew I would not regret the drive up -- the Milky Way arched its backbone across the night sky from horizon to horizon, and the stars were so dense I could barely make out any constellations. Between the stars the sky was as black as coal, and well-known friends like M13 and M31 were easy naked-eye sights. It was an absolutely gorgeous night!
I set up my 6" scope, opened up the binoculars, and set out my chair...all the while, Perseids were flitting out of the blackness to briefly light up the sky. The most obvious difference between the conditions this morning and the previous night was the persistence of the meteor trails. Nearer to SF the previous night, most trails were only visible as long as the meteor itself was still burning brilliantly. At Lake Sonoma, you could see the trails leave their ionized mark in the sky for many seconds after the bright flash had disappeared!
The meteors seemed to come in waves...there would be 4 or 5 coming close together in time (but from various spots in the sky), then nothing for 3 or 4 minutes. I was just starting to enjoy the show when a car slowed at the trailhead entrance and shined a flashlight on the entrance sign, obviously looking for the right place -- and David Finn pulled in.
David got parked and settled, and we looked for Perseids again for a while. There seemed to be a break in the meteor action, so we turned to the scope and had looks at Jupiter, Saturn, M31 & M32, M13, M57, the Pleiades, and a few other goodies. We spent the next few hours oohing and ahhing when some particularly bright Perseid would make an appearance, and chatting during the lulls.
One odd thing we noticed -- there was a bit of a cloud bank to the North-West moving in slowly (it arrived and covered us about 4:30 AM). Off in the direction of the cloud bank, we saw fairly frequent flashes of light. The flashes seemed to come in groups like the Perseids...was it lightning from the foggy/coastal clouds? Perseids streaming down behind the clouds lighting them up? We never did quite figure it out, but neither explanation seemed to fit the conditions!
We watched Orion peek over the Eastern horizon as the clouds finally began to cover us, and when they got dense enough to obscure any more meteors we called it a night (a morning? :) The meteor frequency wasn't overwhelmnig, but there were always enough to keep us interested, and one or two very bright bolides. The sky darkness was wonderful, despite a cool, steady breeze that chilled us a bit and made the air a bit unsteady (this was the same sort of breeze that I encountered last time at Lake Sonoma -- I sense a trend...). All in all, a wonderful night with good company out under the celestial fireworks show.
Now I just have to take a long lunch and spend it in my car sleeping...