Leonids-Night at Fremont Peak

by Bob Czerwinski


I've never seen Fremont Peak State Park so packed with vehicles and people! The place was certainly a zoo last night, but the Leonid shower made the trip well worthwhile. I arrived at the entrance to the park shortly before 6:00pm, and was told by Ranger Alex that the campgrounds were full, and that both the main and SW lots were pretty well packed as well. Rather than fight my way into the SW lot, I just drove up the road toward the FPOA observatory instead, and set up my 12.5" Dob near the "railing" area to do some observing. A couple of other FPOA folk were already in place with an 12" LX-200 up and running, and I figured to get a few hours of observing in as well before kicking back to watch for meteors. Sandra Macika showed up about the same time, heading up to the observatory area, intent on counting meteors.

Although high cirrus-looking stuff was passing through the area while I was setting up, folks around were encouraged by the forecast maps and the satellite photos. Clouds moved through during the early evening hours, with more than 50% of the sky sometimes unavailable, so it was initially hit and miss as far as deep-sky objects go. With a constant stream of public visitors, along with passing cloud bands, I eventually gave up on my own deep-sky program, and just showed off some of the brighter showcase items to the public - in whatever area of the sky was clear - the most popular of which were M15, M57, M36/37/38, M31/32/110, Jupiter, Saturn and Comet LINEAR (C/2000 WM1). My personal favorite was the comet. The comet was *really* on the move, with only a couple of minutes necessary to detect movement. My guess is that this thing was moving about five arc-minutes/hour or so, with a magnitude of about 7~7.5. I'd like to know what others think.

By 10:30pm or so, skies were definitely showing signs of major improvement, and just kept getting better and better. By midnight, things were clear as a bell, with great transparency and seeing conditions. It appeared to me that the Leonid counts were starting to pick up as early as 10:30pm, but it may have been that with more and more people filtering into the area, I was just hearing more "oooh's" and "ahhhh's". Before settling into my kick-back-and-relax-chair for the night, I wandered over to the Coulter/SW Lot areas for a quick look-see. Yep, these areas were packed, all right. As I wandered through the area, the only voices I recognized were those of Phil Chambers and Bob Baldwin. Not all that many 'scopes set up, but there were people and vehicles galore. Wandered back over to the observatory road, packed up my 'scope, and then settled in to await Mother Nature's main event. Jeff Crilly stopped by a short time later.

There was a constant stream of people with lawnchairs, blankets, campstoves, pets, etc., moving along the road to/from the observatory. Skywatcher comments really picked up from about 1:00am on, with Mother Nature's show running relatively constant from about 1:45am until about 3:30am. There may have been a slight pick up in activity around 2:15pm, but I'm not certain if this was just my imagination, or if it might had had to do with the area of the sky on which I was concentrating at the time. I've never seen so many meteors in my life, with a wide variety of displays in virtually every area of the sky. Paralleled pairs, meteors that lit up the ground, five in a single second, some with trails that lasted for well over a minute, two moving right out from the radiant at the same time in opposite directions, etc. Just a wonderful display to behold. No matter in what area of the sky you looked, well, give it a few seconds and a meteor would pass on through. I loved the ones that appeared to "skip," leaving gaps in their wake. It was great having so many people around to "ooh" and "ahh", which really helped me to quickly turn my head to catch a glimse of quite a number I would have missed otherwise. (I think I've suffered whiplash. <grin>) In addition to the folk I mentioned earlier, among the many voices I heard along the observatory road included those of Mike Koop and Dave & Akkana.

Driving down the mountain was a real chore. Cars were parked on both sides of the road, some even parked in the middle of the lanes, which made for a real driving adventure. There were dozens of 'em, stretching upwards of two miles, perhaps more. And departing people were everywhere, some even trying their luck at hitch-hiking down the hill. Anybody with a wide vehicle would have been in real trouble - unless you were driving a Humm-vee <grin> - as you would have had to have waited for the owner to eventually return. At one point I saw a person sacked out on the top of his/her Jetta; hope the car's rootop is still OK. <grin> A lot of fog once I hit San Juan Batista, but this cleared by the time I hit the outskirts of Gilroy.

Quite a night; one I certainly won't forget.