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(meteorobs) meteor observing experiences

Speaking of birds and meteor watching,
Last year during the Leonids I was out in the Columbia River Gorge. bundled up
in a sleeping bag watching for meteors when a black silhouette swooped in front
of my face.   Startled I realized it was an owl. Very silent, very eery.  Their
special shaped feather tips make them silent as they fly.   I thought that was
cool until the owl made another pass.   Then I realized that just my eyes and
hair were showing and I probably  looked to the owl like some kind of weird
rabbit.   At this point I sat up and waved my arms and made some noise.  "I AM
NOT A RABBIT!"
It did not come close after that but I did see it's silhouette flying in the
distance checking other areas for a tasty rodent to catch.

Dustin Brown
Vancouver WA



Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 10:09:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robin Gray <sevenvalleysent@yahoo.com>
Subject: (meteorobs) Meteor Observing Experiences

Dear All,

I've been reading with interest people's comments on
their meteor observing experiences. The weather here
in Northern Nevada has been bad pretty much the whole
month of April and it doesn't look like it is going to
improve before the Lyrids are gone. I'm really pretty
dissapointed about that but obviously there's nothing
I can do. Sooner or later the weather will clear, the
Moon will be out of the way and I'll get the chance to
observe some meteors again. I don't care if the shower
is spectacular or not, I like them all. I like the
idea of contributing to our understanding of meteors
by recording and sending in my observations. But there
are a lot of other things that go along with this and
make up the whole experience. There is a special kind
of solitude to observing meteors in the small hours of
the morning when everyone else is sleeping. And there
are other things out there that become part of the
experience. Like Bob Lunsford, birds are part of that
for me. There is one species of bird that I frequently
hear when I am out at night. As I have never seen it I
can't identify it but I always associated it's cry
with meteors and deep sky observing and they all
enhance each other. Lying on my back I've learned a
lot about cloud behavior, something that happens to a
much lesser extent during the daytime. And I've even
gained insight into mosquitos - which species are
present and something about their activity cycles
during the night, a piece of understanding that
probably would not have come to me except through
observing meteors. Meteor observing, in fact all of
observational Astronomy, is like an iceberg - it's a
deep experience most of which is beyond the reach of
words.

Robin Gray

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