Its been a while since was last at a remote site for deep sky observing. Couple this with the desire to convey the SW desert observing nights and this report will be a long one.
For those new to TAC, I was a off again - on again observer with the group from early 97' to 4/2000. I have relocated to central Arizona since and due to the slow relo pace and the summer rainy season here, this is my first "remote event" here.
Started out at 5pm. and headed out of Sun Lakes, Az. onto RT 347 going SW, leaving the metro area behind in minutes. I know the route by memory and could drive it with eyes closed (probably did this a few times after all nighters:-( ) but it felt good to be back after 3 and a half years. The highway is as straight as an arrow and runs 30 miles through the AK Chin native American community, to join SR 84 and turn to the west. The temp was a comfortable 101 and off in the distance to my SE was Tucson, wrapped in a huge late monsoon thunderstorm with second by second lightning strikes. Wondered if Messrs' Shade and Hales would get a observing night under all of that? Soon 84 joins I8 with a single small sign reading San Diego 370 miles and a left arrow. Onto 8 and into a sunset that belongs in a John Wayne picture, with the sun setting between two distant mesa's, and got my reality check here, yes I was back. The 12 miles to the Vekol road exit were spent wondering how the site had changed over the years, with the rapid development in some parts of the state. So far the scenery was same as I had left it but when pulled off the interstate to Vekol road and crossed the cattle guard, found the road had been paved since my last visit. Fortunately this was all the development the region had seen since 96' and the sky would prove as dark and boundless as I had last experienced it, with Hale Bopp squarely placed in the middle of it back then.
8 miles of the newly paved road, which proved only a bit less lumpy than the old dirt one brought the van to the observing site, just past the marker- "the tree" a rather scraggly looking Palo Verde about 15' tall and overhanging the road. On the scale of local flora, its like your Redwoods back there. Just past is the entrance to the site and a welcome display of vehicles and scopes poked through the sagebrushes. For those of you who used to frequent Fremont Peak, let me tell you about this site. Even if you arrive just before twilight, like I was doing, there are spots with a full 360 degree view, in fact - they all have a 360 degree view, not just the two cars that get there at noon. Setup is a bit different here too, with usually 20 to 50 feet between cars, just enough to get around and see everyone, but space enough to enjoy space in all directions. Cars were still arriving but no problem, enough space for Nimitz class carriers here. I was perched in the open door of the van waiting for it to get a bit darker when a meteor flashed through the still very bright sky of the Northwest. That must have been a real bright one, and I wondered if it could have been seen from Calstar, as it had disappeared over the horizon in that direction. If it did travel that far, it would have been seen in a sky just minutes past sunset there, and may not have been as bright. Little did I know the big meteor show was just 90 minutes away.
The 12" went together quickly and collimated in just under a minute, haven't lost my touch. It has been so long, everything is somewhat new again, so headed for the center of the milky way, and soon had M22, 20 , 8 , 16 and 17 in view. I decided over the long hiatus in viewing to do more thorough observing from here out, and not just blast through lists checking off boxes for faint fuzzies to see what the tally will be. I have been doing this for 10 years previous and it was fun, but my Uranometria 2000 is now retired to a shelf with just about all the objects north of 54 degrees south highlightered in. The colors are blue for my Vermont years, green for my first stay in Arizona, and violet for the California years. Now, I want to take my time with each object, draw more of them, try all the eyepieces on them, throw all the filters at them save for the Mr. Coffee. With that, settled down to a 60 minute sketch of M17, but was soon to be interrupted.
As I was looking down at the drawing easel, I heard a gasp from the next observer, the page in front of me grew bright, drowning the red light in a welders-torch-blue glow. I looked up and out of Pegasus comes a meteor, already at minus 10 magnitude and growing. The meteor was slow, taking 12 or more seconds to cross the sky and it crossed it all. It almost seemed to take longer but suspect this is like how time and perception slow down, like when in a tumultuous event. The core of the meteor was a brilliant yellow with a orange (like a HPS streetlamp and bright as one or brighter) trail some 20 to 30 degrees burning after it. As it crossed overhead, it calved a spread of 4 parallel meteors, brilliant orange with trails of glowing flecks. These 4 soon became three, but these hung in for several seconds. They almost seemed to be bars, elongated rods travelling sideways plowing plasma ahead of them. The meteor was easily twice the brightness of the full moon as it crossed past the zenith and headed west. At about 30 degrees from the west horizon, it began to dim and spawned another 8 projectiles some of which were red and some orange, some burning out and others becoming exploding bolides, the parent meteor now minus 5 magnitude disappeared into the west in the direction of Yuma. During all of this a rising chorus of joyous yells , religious thanks and some very unprintable items was rising. Afterwards, in the slowly returning dark vision I could see observers milling around chattering quickly. There were several sounds about 30 seconds later that sounded like big car doors slamming loud, perhaps the sonic waves of the event? Looked overhead and saw that there was no trail or luminous train, or other artifact, and this struck me as strange. The one thing that may have kept me from seeing some of it was the sheer dazzling of the eyes. I could close eyelids even 20 minutes later and see streaks from it. There were several astrophotographers among the thirty or so of the group and wondered if any were taking wide field shots, although a all-sky camera would have been needed to get it all. After about 30 minutes, things calmed down and the sketch resumed. What a welcome back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
During the evening the SE corner of the sky was the Tucson storm but the rest was clear, and I added to the Sagittarius objects seen a look at M31 and 33, these will require dedicated evenings to render, so moved on to Cetus and did a sketch of NGC 246 a very lumpy planetary, kind of ike the Owl neb, but much more complex patterns in it. Also stopped to try for IC51, not far from 246. A very dim lenticular galaxy, it came in very easy and was much brighter and detailed than last seen as a fleeting spot from Pacheco SP. Took some quick looks at NGC 390, 210 and stopped for a sketch of NGC 253, the "Southern Andromeda". By this time it was past 2 AM and I began to tire. A quick nap in the van turned into a 3 hour blink and at 5:30 began a twilight drive home. The drive back is much easier than coming down from FP, Coe or Pacheco Pass, with no attempts to kill me by the road here. It was 55 degrees F on the way back, it had dropped about 5 degrees per hour after sunset. In two months, the winter clothes will be needed for all nighters.
Arriving back at 6:30, settled into a real sleep which only lasted until the others in the house started football viewing at 10:00, oh well...
Sounds like Calstar was a big success, looking forward to your observing journals from it.