(SNES) 1800+ an hour!!!

["Dave Aucoin" <deepskydave@hotmail.com>]

WOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!!

Oh my gawd!!!

Last night was the most fantasical night I have ever been priveledged to be 
out under the stars. It was touch and go there for awhile, with the clouds 
slowly encroaching upon us up in Rumney, NH as twilight gave way to night. 
But after 2:30 AM, the skies opened up and the stars began to fall. Shortly 
there after, a small brief pass of clouds dimmed our hopes, but then again, 
the breeze began to blow and the clouds shooed away for a great night of 
meteor watching.

Although in this shower/storm, using and analogy of rain to meteors, not 
even the most protective of rain gear could have kept you dry from this 
downpour. From the clouds drifting by til the first rays of sunlight in the 
dawn, this was truly the best night of my life watching this rain of stars. 
Literally tens per every 3 seconds. In some cases, I saw 3 stacked on top of 
each other in rapid succession, boom, boom, boom. There were bollides 
galour. Some with trains that lasted many tens of minutes. Watching the 
trains through small binos showed a twisting of the tendrils of smoke as 
they drifted lazily among the upper atmospheric winds. At times the trains 
brightened slightly when passing near a bright star.

There were very bright bollides everywhere. While lying down, facing west, I 
was watching the region of Cassiopiea, my friend Steve Mach(Mock), was 
illuminated by a bright bollide in the south east. His shadow appeared on 
the domes of the observatory behind him. Another meteor litterally exploded 
into a magnitude -10 explosion as we were looking to the east. There were 2 
bollides in the south west within a few seconds of each other, each 
producing magnitude -4 balls of fire. These also had trains that lasted for 
tens of minutes.

The cacophany of oohs and ahhhs permeated the top of the mountain we were 
on. My friend's house was about 300 feet away and we had practically horizon 
to horizon views of the sky. At 1800 feet on top of a mountain near Rumney 
NH, we were dazzled by the great display for about 4 hours. As the cold 
seeped into my sneakers, warmed by hot packs, commercially sold hand 
warmers, I was bundled in 2 layers of pants and jackets with hand warmers in 
my gloves. My nose and chin were frosty, but that didnt bother me.

I was amazed by the brightness of the meteors. Granted there were alot of 
spiffers, faint, barely noticable meteors, many of the falling grains of 
sand like debris fell in bright plumes of iridescent orange, blue and green. 
As I lay on the ground for the first 3 hours, I had a 180 degree view from 
south near orion to north to the big dipper, forming a rough semi-circle of 
sky. As I followed one meteor, it led to another, then another and so on. 
While training my eyes to cover the most sky at once, I could see meteors 
just inside my extreme vision at the very corners of my eyes, while being 
able to see from Draco to Eridanus and up to Auriga most of the time.

The boisterous shouts of the 10 or so people laying prostrate on the ground 
or in their chaize lounges, there never was a silent moment, until the last 
vestiges of darkness faded into twilight and our voices were hoarse from 
screaming and yelling. If there were neighbors as prosperous at sea level up 
near we were, then the cops would have had to come and break up the party. 
As morning was giving way to the dawn, the zodiacal light painted a wispy 
glow in the north east. Many a meteor wisked by to the left or right and 
sometimes on top of Saturn and Jupiter. The pleiades were pelted by the 
falling stars as a few made there way into the cluster on many an ocassion.

Many times, there was a never ending stream of oohs and ahhs. IF you didnt 
see the ones in back of you, then my friends by their shouts surely told me 
that there were more to be seen.

At times, 2, 3, 4 and sometimes 5 meteors fell right after the other. Within 
a second, a 6th, 7th and 8th meteor followed. There was never a long lull in 
the action. We had a great outburst at 3:30, then again at 5 and again 
around 5:45am. As I made my way to go to sleep at 6am, as I walked towards 
the house, wearily dragging my feet, I glanced up to the north. A slew of 
meteors near Polaris wisked by as if to say goodnight and thanks for 
watching us. Many a morning satellite moved slowly through the pre-dawn 
skies, sometimes escorted by a meteor or 2.

To sum up MY experience, imagine watching your favorite baseball team, 
playing both the penant and last game of the world series one after the 
other, and winning both, and they had hit after hit after hit and the crowd 
went wild. That was what it was like, atop that mountain, in a sleepy little 
town, far up in the NH wilderness, with a sky painted with stars, with dark 
gulfs of sky between them, dotted with clusters and naked eye nebulosity, a 
milky way streaming from horizon to horizon, 2 planets bright and bold, and 
the best damn meteor storm I have ever seen in my life.

If I died anytime real soon, I can say I am happy, I have seen the greatest 
spectacle of my life (besides a total solar eclipse) and I can surely say 
thats all I need to see....goodbye.

You had to be there, you had to witness this display and you had to feel 
like you were amongst the best of friends, sharing jokes and witty patter, 
oohing and aaahing, exclaiming to god that you were pleased...there is 
nothing other than that and these mere words cannot convey how I really 
felt, watching the stars fall and my eyes catching the photons of this 
fantastic shower of light.

Dave Aucoin

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