by Paul Sterngold
...and I'm not referring to Harry Potter! I decided late to head out to Del Valle because it's less than an hour from my home. I stopped at a gas station in Livermore to stock up on snacks, and guess who I ran into at 10:30pm? Peter Trinkl! We agreed to meet again at the park fireroad gate, then we let ourselves in and drove to the observing area. There were several other TACOS (or at least, EB-TACOS) there- Jim (sorry, forgot your last name) and Amy, and Chris Bailey with a friend.
The road up to and into the park was an absolute zoo, lined with cars and lawn chairs. Not a problem for us because our site is behind a locked gate, but the headlights from the road do affect us, and they were coming and going all night long, even as I departed at 3:45am. But we didn't let that deter us.
I brought a camera and some film, and my equatorial mount, in order to try my hand at some meteor photos. I began unpacking, and immediately, well before midnight, a long, slow, bright Leonid streaked from the bowl of the Big Dipper, below the north star, and towards Cass. Wow! That bode well for the evening.
After setting up, I noticed that the cold was creeping into my bones, so I bundled up, got out my sleeping bag, and st down in the chair. Oh yeah, I started an exposure, which I did over and over again all night, about every six or seven minutes (5 min exposures @ f/2.4 on Kodak PPF). Thank goodness for that sleeping bag! It was moist out, and a slight breeze kicked up and sliced through us like a knife.
But the cold didn't dull our enthusiasm, wonder or joy. After midnight, the bright shooters started coming about once a minute, with dimmer ones in between. Then right about 2:00am, the pace quickened, with bursts that lasted a minute or more when there was probably 30 or more per minute. It was especially interesting because there were phases when there were lots of long, bright ones, and times when there were lots of rapid dimmer ones, and even other times when there were short bright ones. The clusters would come and go, with the pace quickening, then slowing for a while, then again bursting. At times, we thought the show was over, but it had only temporarily fooled us. Bam! Wham! Ooh! Aah!
The most memorable ones all night were, first of all, the multiple bursts, when two or three or even four all radiated from nearly the same spot and shot out at close but slightly different paths. Then there were a couple of occasions when two shot parallel to one another, and other times when one would shoot, then immediately another would start there that one ended. The "shooter of the night" was a very bright, relatively slow one under Orion, that broke up into two bright flashes at the end. That one was near the end of our evening (around 3:15am?), but not the end of the show. They were still flying when we packed it in around 3:30am and drove out at 3:45am.
That was my first "real" shower that wasn't washed out, a dud, or clouded out. I am so lucky to have taken the chance, and for conditions to have rewarded us so richly. Warm thanks to Peter for his company, we had a very nice time together enjoying the storm.