Time for a Shower

Last night I ventured away from the glow of the cities to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower. I took my new, folding, reclining lawn chair, a warm blanket, a CARE package of snacks (thanks, Jerry!) and my camera. I went to the same spot where we watched one of those amazing displays of the Leonid meteors around 10 years ago.

I got to my spot at about 9:00pm. There were already several cars parked there and people sitting in their camp or lawn furniture. I parked my car and quickly got my equipment out so I wouldn't have the interior light on to bother my neighbors. I had tried to have them just not come on but it isn't obvious how to do that.

I left the windows down so that I could get things in and out of the car without opening the door and turning on the interior lights. But my helpful car thwarted that plan. When you walk up to it at night with your smart key in your pocket, it turns on the interior lights to let you see that intruders haven't infiltrated it. Or perhaps to let you know that you have approached your car instead of someone else's.

So, instead of setting up shop beside my car where I would have been shielded a bit from the headlights of cars that were to come and go through the night I had to set up in front of it.

Another thing that my intelligent car did for me is lock itself when I left its side. How nice of it! Locking up after me whenever I forget to lock it myself is a good thing. The problem with that now is that it has an alarm and to warn intruders that it's going to scream at them if they bother it, it has a bright, blinking light. So the car blinked all night. It wasn't so bright that it ruins people's night vision so that wasn't too bad. It was just annoying.

It was a beautiful night and location for watching a meteor shower. The sky was completely clear. And dark. I didn't know that the Milky Way was so bright anywhere in southern California.

It was rather chilly and quite windy. I am glad that I took a warm blanket with me.

There seem to be two kinds of people who go out to good meteor shower watching spots. There are people who watch good meteor showers. And there are people who go because it is, they've heard, a good thing to do.

There were many people in the second category there.

Some time after I got there in rumbled a convoy of four huge SUVs. A large extended family or circle of friends brought their kids to experience this event. Of course, the kids weren't all that interested. It took them about 20 minutes to get set up meaning the doors were open all that time and the lights were on all that time. After they kind of settled down they made many trips back to the cars. More lights. There was loud talking between the people getting stuff out of the SUV and the rest all this time. Fortunately they must have gotten bored and left after about an hour.

Then two couples came and set up very close to me. One was a non-stop know-it-all talker. She simply hates the Olive Garden. But she'll go if there's nowhere else to eat. (Question: Where on earth is there an Olive Garden that has no other restaurant nearby?) One of the men had had several long-term relationships with women with histories of suicide attempts. At least the know-it-all was watching the show. She'd frequently interrupt what she was saying with "there went another good one!" The others didn't seem to care.

Their conversation was entertaining to listen to. But then one of the women needed to pee so she and one of the men went off to find a place to go. They quickly came back. Wherever they had gone was occupied by something that moved and freaked her out. They left in search of a place with a toilet.

One person in another group was reading his iPhone or some other lit up device. That's great for night vision that's needed for watching the sky.

Those of us who were out there to watch meteors had a very good time. There were a lot of bright meteors. There was one very bright meteor that left a trail that was visible for more than a minute. I'm not a counter of meteors. I'm out there to say "ooooh!" and "ahhhhhhh!" I said "ooooh!" and "ahhhhhhh!" a lot.

I set up my camera and had it take pictures of the sky. I set its ISO sensitivity to 2000, opened the aperture all the way and had it expose each shot for 15 seconds. I had it take a picture every 16 seconds. (Could there be a movie in the making? Time will tell!)

Several hours into this I was sitting there watching the sky and noticed that I didn't hear the periodic noises from the camera. Its battery had died. I had a backup battery. I managed to get the dead battery out and the new one in in the dark (except for my helpful car turning on the interior lights when I reached in to get the fresh battery out of the camera bag and again when I put the dead battery in the bag). It turned out that the last picture from the first battery was taken only about two minutes before the first picture with the second battery.

Here are a few pictures that captured meteors. The camera was pointing nearly north. The glow seems to be coming from the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area. I tried to make the horizon horizontal but didn't quite succeed.

August 12, 2010, 10:47pm

This must be a sporadic meteor since it doesn't point back to Perseus which has just risen above the horizon on the right side of the picture. There were a bunch of impressive sporadic meteors all through the night.

August 13, 2010, 12:33am

August 13, 2010, 1:35am

August 13, 2010, 1:56am

I packed up and headed for home around 3:30. My eyes were blacking out on me. I guess my brain was staying awake but the eyes were insisting on sleeping. I wasn't seeing any meteors. I figured I'd better get home while I could keep awake for the drive. I saw one more meteor shoot toward the horizon while driving home.

I love meteors. But I just can't stay awake all night. My brain is still a bit fuzzy from lack of sleep.