Nov 19, 2002. Canton Farm dark-sky observing site, Illinois
This morning at around 2:00 I got up to head out to my club's dark-site west of the city to get to some clearing in the skies to watch the much anticipated Leonid meteor showers. It was cold and the moon was full, though at any other time it might've been more romantic to be under the dark skies with the full-moon, this was far from it. I hadn't held much hope since it was blighty cold, damp and raining up until around 11:00 PM and then the fog set in. All in all, it didn't look promising, the weather outlooks was vacillating between partly cloudy to cloudy, never with any certainity and with the conditions, I went to bed without much hope. Then tra-la, at around 2:00, the weather.com satellite image showed that the front had indeed moved enough east that we were near the trailing edge giving me much more hope and a renewed enthusiasm to join some of my fellow astronomers who had decided to brave the cold and had camped out since the night before. I picked up another club member on the way and headed west. As I was driving, could see a break in the clouds (still mostly overcast to the east), and the moon showing through it. And by the time we got to the dark site, it was almost 4:00 AM and by the time I got settled to a good reclining position, with layers or blankets/jackets, scarf, gloves and a woolen head-cap, the show started (it had been a trickle up until then) and the clouds had parted almost 90 % of the sky by then. We had taken the shade of a silo by the barn to keep the setting full-moon behind us as to avoid the glare. Constellation Leo, the radiant for the showers was well overhead and bright Jupiter was close to it. We all (around 20 of us) then "oohed" and "aahed" until around 5:30AM by which time, by some counts, we witnessed almost 300-400 meteors. One person brought some hot coffee for those of us who wanted to keep warm and a few rounds of jokes went around to keep up the spirits in the cold and the eyes open to this spectacle. In all, the camaraderie, the fellowship and the good feeling that comes with not being disappointed due the clouds won the day (or rather the night). Of course, this was by no measure as clear a night (and dark) as the one last year I witnessed with my friend in Kyoto or by any means as much of a "meteor storm" as last year. Surely, I'll cherish the one before for the next so many years - this being only my second time observing any meteor shower - I guess I was just plain lucky to be in two successive years in a place where the clouds kept clear for some really nice observing. And since the period of the temple-tuttle comet is about 33 years and the predictions that we may not see one as many as people did in 1966 (as many as 150,000 per hour as compared to around 6000 per hour last year) for the next 99 years or so, I feel really privileged to be part of the nice cosmic show that light our skies in two successive years.. Until the next Geminid meteor showers around Dec 14th, I'll keep looking... and hope u'd join too wherever you are in the world, if not in body at least in spirit.