Screwed By The Marine Layer

IMG_6994no perseids for meLast night was the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. Spoiler alert–I saw nothing! It wasn’t from lack of trying. It was the marine layer… which I wrote about yesterday and still couldn’t avoid!

I asked my Cousin Michael to go. We headed south down “The 5” to San Juan Capistrano. That’s where the swallows return. It’s also the way you get to Caspers Wilderness Park.

Orange County’s largest park, the wilderness setting offers a rare opportunity to experience nature in its entire splendor throughout the year. Open for both day use and camping, visitors can enjoy a number of recreational activities, including several unique interpretive programs to acquaint them with the natural splendor of the area.

We went to Caspers because it’s dark. For meteor showers darker is better! I packed my camera, a few lens, intervalometer and tripod.

We arrived and parked next to a locked gate. The sky was dark as expected, but cars were driving by. Headlights and meteor showers don’t mix.

A few minutes later someone came by and showed us a way into the park and to a ranger who’d direct us further. It couldn’t have taken more than five minutes to go from the gate to the Nature Center.

Now we were away from the headlights in a really dark location! I looked up and… wow… something screwy was going on.

A few minutes earlier the sky had been ablaze with stars. Now it was like looking through smoked glass. Only the brightest few stars were visible. Things were going downhill fast.

In a matter of minutes the marine layer had rolled in and turned clear to overcast. Unreal.

No need to stay. It wasn’t going away until morning! I put my camera gear in the car and we drove back north. I’m sure Michael could sense my mood swing to sour.

I dropped him off, drove home and looked up. Now the stars were shining over my house! Are you kidding me?

It’s not as dark here as it was in the park, but beggars can’t be choosers. I unpacked up my gear, including the intervalometer set to take an endless stream of 20 second exposures. The camera began clicking away.

Three minutes later, it was overcast here! Truly depressed, I packed it in for the night.

There will be other meteor showers, but this seemed so promising with only a sliver of Moon overhead.

4 thoughts on “Screwed By The Marine Layer”

  1. Cloudy here in Connecticut so no viewing last night. I’m hoping for better visibility tonight. That early morning loo trip will include a trip outside to see if there’s anything to see 🙂 Hope you have better luck tonight

  2. Even though it was cloudy in CT last night I sat and waited. Within ten minutes I saw one. Then, the bats started flying closer to me and I decided one was enough!

  3. We sat out last night here in Granby, an occassional cloud would pass over, but we did see about a dozen…they were awesome!

Leave a Reply to Pat Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *