by Kevin Schuerman
I spent Saturday night observing from Lake Don Pedro. I had my ST90 set up, but spent most of my time watching for meteors. I saw about 50 meteors from 10pm to 2:30am. There were many I missed that were witnessed by those around me (I heard them called out, but was looking elsewhere). Several meteors were quite bright, but the brightest one by far streaked overhead toward the southwest at 1:30am. I believe it was the same one that Matthew Marcus observed and I'm certain it was the same one that Richard Crisp wrote about:
Unfortunately I had my head down doing my teardown when the two best meteors of the night streaked by. The very bright one that has been widely reported really looked like a lightning flash to me when I was looking down packing my gear. I immediately looked up to see a trail that must have been between 15 to 30 degrees across the sky!
I, too, was in the process of packing up the telescope and putting it in the tent when I saw a brilliant flash reflect off of my black Bogen tripod legs. My immediate thought was that it resembled lightning. I looked up just in time to see the last second or so of the meteor's life, but the smoke trail it left behind was still visible and impressive. The moon cleared the hills around the lake at about 1:30am, but cumulus clouds off to the east effectively hid the moon for about another half an hour. I decided to watch for meteors until about 2:30am. The wind was nearing Dino Point proportions, which was unusual for Don Pedro.
Telescopic observation was mostly finding bright Messiers to point out to the many water-skiing folks who were camped there. M8 (Phil Terzian would be proud), M17, M15 and M31 were impressive, as was the Milky Way. Mars, again, was a featureless, boiling disk. Many in the crowd asked to see it -- I was careful to set the expectations low.
Two highlights of the evening -- the bright meteor at 1:30am and someone in the crowd shining a flashlight into the sky to ask for a constellation identification (it was Delphinus, of all things!)
Clear skies,
Kevin
P.S. The highlight of the day was helping a friend pick up a 16-inch Dobsonian telescope in San Francisco. This one was a REAL Dobsonian -- made many years ago by the master himself.