by Steve Winslow
When I left the house Saturday afternoon I was starting to have my doubts that the weather was going to cooperate for the meteor shower. My 6 year old son Kevin & I scanned the sky often while driving up highway 9 to Skyline on the way to Montebello. We were however treated to a beautiful sunset from the ridge while in route which was a first for me on the way to a star party.
When we arrived at the parking lot at around 5:00pm, Richard & Eric were there with their kids also. I'm not sure if Dan Wright was there already but I saw him shortly after. There was another gentleman there with his wife & an Orion dob.
The weather was the main topic of conversation & we wondered if we picked our site poorly for the night. At one point we joked about all of us posting to TAC the next day how great it was at Montebello even if it stayed cloudy but fortunately we didn't have to because it cleared up after 9:00. We looked toward the southeast & worried that the group at Coe might have just inherited our bad weather as ours got better.
Kevin, Rebecca & Kiefer played tag in the dark while I observed with my 12.5" dob & the bino-chair that Richard mentioned earlier. Things were pretty wet but I managed to keep most of the stuff that I looked through dry for the most part. It was interesting to notice the humidity fluctuate & a quick shout over to Eric with his table top weather instruments would confirm our perception. Luckily it got much drier as it got later.
I enjoyed views of Mars, the Ring Nebula, the M2 & M15 globulars, the Andromeda galaxy & the clusters in Cassiopia M103, NGCs 663, 654, 457,436, 129, 225 & 281. A peek through Richard's Telrad helped me line up on the comet. Saturn, Jupiter & the Orion nebula were viewed later. Dan brought over his borrowed 8" dob & we shared views & eyepieces for awhile.
Many more people started showing up to watch the meteors so & I shared some views of the more popular objects with them as they strolled by my scope. After midnight the meteors were grabbing our attention so I put away the eyepieces & sat back in the bino-chair. early on I saw the longest meteor I could imagine, it stretched over such a large part of the sky I had to spin the chair to keep my eyes on it as it took off toward the southwest. I woke up Kevin who was napping in the van & we put a mattress down on the ground with sleeping bags over us & enjoyed a wonderful show while comfortable & toasty.
Many people started packing up after 3:00am so we did also. I dried everything off as I put it away & noticed that the mirrors on my dob were still bone dry, (aren't Newtonians great)!
Thanks go out to Richard & Eric for showing up with their permits & their kids & to Steve Sergeant for staying late to man the gate.