by Michael Peck
Man, I didn't think anybody was going to be at MB tonight! I got there a little before 8, and started setting up and hiding from the mosquitos.
They weren't that bad, but no DEET, no me outside.
I took a couple of pictures of the parking lot at about 8:20, and there were something like 8 cars there.
My 5-year old had had enough by 10:15 or so, so I packed up. I didn't walk around and count, but I think there were more like 15 or 16 cars by then. As I was leaving, three more pulled in! Headlights everywhere!
And the people that had the lights off kept backing up! Oh well, it was still early, and the show wasn't really going yet. My wife and I laughed driving down, since we passed probably 10 more cars headed up.
I don't know if they were headed to MB or not, but there were lots of 'em!
In the 2 hours after it started getting dark, there were probably less than 20 decent meteors. What did show up were very brilliant, yellow to white in color, and most of the ones I saw had good 10-15 degree long tails, usually a skip and bright flame-out at the end. I didn't catch any in the direction of Persius, always overhead or opposite that direction.
However, I did get some nice viewing in of M13, M4, M5, M22, M30. Also got to compare a Nextstar 11 to my C8 with my 5mm. Way too much for the seeing, but I'm convinced that I need the bigger aperture. I really wish I had the cash for that used C11 on a G11 that I saw at Lumicon a month or so ago!
I can't wait to see reports of just how spectacular the show gets!