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Re: (meteorobs) Distance to Observing site
Hi, George and Wayne. I didn't see Wayne's original post about his and Kevin's
travel times, but 75 seconds is a mighty short trip! I have a ten minute drive
myself to the Pink Sky Site, but even that can seem like a heck of a trip at 4
in the morning, after a work day.
By the way, another reason to mention driving distances, for those of us not
blessed with the eternal clear, dark skies of the Southwestern States, is the
cloud-cover factor! One of the things which Bob Evans, the famed supernova
hunter, always stresses is the importance of USING every shred of observing time
you can scrape together! I think this is just as true for meteors (IMHO):
If you have to drive 45 minutes to a dark sky site, then when a cloudy evening
comes along, you are a whole lot less likely to stay up and wait it out, to see
if its worth the drive after midnight. On the other hand, with a ten minute
drive to a less-than-perfect site, you can set your alarm for the wee hours, and
if the skies have cleared, you might get in one or more good hours!
Of course nothing compares to a site where the Milky Way burns your eyeballs,
and the clouds are just black blotches on the heavens. But when you can't camp
out in the murky wilderness, a local park is a whole lot more fun than sleeping!
;>
Lew
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