Taurids, Leonids, good views in dark skies

Hi everyone, we are really looking forward to our weekend dark sky getaway on the 14th. Weather permitting, we'll be sure to see Taurids and Leonids and more, oh my! Mojo mentioned it to you all a few weeks ago. To repeat part of his invite: "We travel about 160 miles from home in Monrovia out I-10 to a spot on BLM land south of Joshua Tree. Most of us make a night of it, catching a couple hours sleep as we can, and enjoy breakfast the next morning at Chiriaco Summit. Some will leave around midnight to make the trek back." With the time change it gets dark early now, so that means you'd need to arrive before 5:30 p.m., It is dark in the desert, and you travel on a 2 mile dirt road, and you need light to park on soft sand with many pokey bushes and cacti. This site is unfortunately not suitable for large trucks or RV's. Let us know if you'd like to join us, and we'll send the map. Plan to bring plenty of water, a comfortable chair and layers of clothing for (possibly chilly) meteor observing after midnight to dawn. I'm toying with a Leonid morning trek (that would be Monday night the 16th until dawn on Tuesday the 17th) depending on the weather. Maybe Warner Springs, maybe all the way to our observing site. I get all sentimental about the Leonids as Mojo and I have been observing them as part of the NASA Airborne Meteor missions for many years. The bonus view will be Saturn in Leo - been a while since we've had a good look at the real Lord of the Rings. :-) Now, on to business! My What's Up November podcast is all about the Crab Nebula in Taurus and the Leonids get a brief mention at the end. Youtube http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JPLnews#p/u/0/DSRP2XoLgxk - It is also on the JPL front page and lots of other places I mention every month. Blogging about the Leonids: I've been taking a trip down memory lane this week. You can read my story about flying through the 1999 Leonid Storm, and also an interesting (at least to me) article about the first airborne mission one hundred years earlier. It is the story of a woman astronomer (Dorothea Klumpke) observing the Leonids in a balloon! http://jane.whiteoaks.com/ Here's looking up! Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA Websites: http:www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org My NASA JPL What's Up podcast: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup.cfm Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones http://twitter.com/CassiniSaturn Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/