While the night ultimately did end on a positive note, and I DID get a few meteor captures… it was definitely a rough night that I wouldn’t wish on my enemies…
It was the Perfect Storm of Large Crowds…
There was a lot of interest being generated about the 2023 Perseid Meteor Shower… not necessarily because of it being an outburst year like 2016, but ALSO because of it being on a Saturday night around new moon. There was also reportedly a lot of social media hype over this shower, with a lot of posts encouraging people to go out on this Saturday night… including one from yours truly.
And of course when you added the fact that clear skies were forecasted over the California desert, that meant all the more reason for more SoCal residents than usual to make the trip away from the cities out to the locations with much less light pollution.
Knowing full well that the place would be crowded, I made it to my usual spot at Cottonwood Spring about an hour before sunset… and by the time I got there, the parking lot was almost full with many eager viewers outside of their vehicles already set up with cameras and lawn chairs, while a lot of other people chose to hike into the nearby wilderness rather than stay in the parking lot.
By sunset, the parking lot had all available spaces taken… which led to later arrivals parking their cars in unconventional spaces. Others instead parked along the side of the narrow road leading into the lot.
And unfortunately… this event attracted LOTS of traffic. People who arrived later than I did recalled that there was a line of cars getting off I-10 at the Cottonwood Springs Rd exit. And that made me remark that the last time I had seen or heard of anything like that was the 2017 solar eclipse!
And because of this large amount or traffic… the Cottonwood Spring parking lot was constantly dealing with incoming cars looping in and out when they saw there were no available spaces. Anyone who set up their equipment in or around the lot was constantly dealing with the glare from the car lights… making it nearly impossible for observers’ eyes to properly adapt to the sky and watch the meteor shower. I had to keep my camera pointed high enough, or just simply away from the traffic, which as we’ll get to, wasn’t always the practical thing to do.
On top of that, A LOT of people were using bright white lights that also glared across the site… and I’ll never forget hearing the following words from a group that was giving up, as they said, “maybe this place isn’t dark enough.” Once I heard that, I explained, “oh no, you’re in a fantastic location… it’s the lights from the cars and people that are ruining it!”
There was one instance where we saw a nice meteor that left a glowing after trail… only for the trail to be washed out by a parked car turning on their car lights in that same direction. This me to raise my voice with a few choice words along the lines of “damn it, people, turn off your f—ing lights!”
Now, one would think that the traffic would settle down as the night progressed, and during the actual peak hours between 1am to the night’s end that people would be all out of their cars, gazing up, and enjoying the show… well….
It wasn’t until after 3am until the traffic started to settle down enough where we could have our eyes adapted to the sky for prolonged periods of time.
When I finally drove out of the site at 4:30am… there were long lines of cars parked along the sides of the road from the Spring to the Visitors Center… and even as far as going down the mountain pass getting out of the park!
This was a stark contrast to my usual experiences at this same spot… where on numerous times I’d have the entire lot to myself overnight where I could use both of my hands to count the number of cars passing by – and deal with far fewer people shining bright lights at me.
To Make Matters Worse – It Also Got Cloudy!
Did I mention the forecast was for clear skies the entire night?!
The altocumulus and/or cirrocumulus clouds started showing up after 9pm… I was in the process of imaging the Lagoon Nebula, and then PHD2 kept warning me the guide star kept getting lost, and after initial confusion, I finally noticed the clouds, and thought, “where the hell did these clouds come from?!” They appeared to be coming from the east, but it was tough to follow and predict where they’d go because the car lights kept ruining my adaptation.
As such, because they lingered on, the clouds pretty much cancelled any telescopic imaging for the rest of the night… and it also caused me to abandon using my Equatorial mount for tracking sky shots when I was going to attempt meteor snaps. The clouds would often cover one patch of the sky and leave another open… and then close that patch and open a different patch – a pattern we telescope demonstrators call “sucker holes.”
So sometimes, I had no choice but to try and take images in the same direction as the ongoing traffic. Other times, like I did in Ghost Ranch a few months prior, I just tried going for shots where clouds added character to the sky.
The clouds unfortunately were reflecting light from the Coachella Valley cities down towards us – and blocking our view of the ongoing meteor shower. Who knows how many meteors we missed due to the unexpected turn in the weather!
During the time it was too cloudy to do any star imaging, I just chose to do long exposures of the parking lot to detail the passing cars through the parking lot.
At least I was able to get a few decent lucky shots of Perseid meteors.
I chose not to deal with my heavy duty equipment, and instead simply take 13 second non-tracking exposures in a patch just hoping to capture a meteor in that spot… and sometimes the patience was rewarded.
And the rising waning crescent moon to the east was a nice way end to the night.
Many other people who came and went into the park had similar experiences!
One user was kind enough to share with me a video of their drive out of the park, showing the long lines of cars still trying to get in.
Another friend of mine who observed north of Joshua Tree National Park could see the cloud cover where I was, and while they had a better experience overall watching the show, they were caught in the traffic of everyone leaving after dawn, and the trip back home to the LA Metro from the 29 Palms area took much longer than usual.
In Conclusion…
At the end of the day… I’m happy that such a celestial event caused a lot of people to check it out in a dark location… after all… in every observatory shift I work in L.A., I tell visitors to check out the stars in such places and am always trying to inspire people to experience it.
However, for every one person who was there to seriously observe the shower and possibly photograph it… there were perhaps five people who arrived that did not know or understand stargazing etiquette, and were ignorant to the fact that their car lights, or white flashlights were ruining the experiences for everyone…
With that said, despite my annoyance with the crazy crowds, there were plenty of lovely people who did respect what I was trying to do, and enjoyed listening to me talk about the sky and answering their curious astronomy questions… reminding me once more why I do what I do.
If the clouds were not being a major hindrance, then the night would not have been as rough, as it would have been much easier to adapt to the conditions.
ORION BEAR ASTRONOMY 
At least we know the weather man doesn’t only lie in California. We are spending the summer in South Dakota near the Badlands. Headed out there it was supposed to be clear also. We had a hail storm earlier in the day, then clouds. At least I got some lightning shots. This is Darcy we met at your favorite spot in I think 2020.
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