For Star-Gazing Brethren:

[Biff Johnson]

I posted this on 6th Street at 247Horns earlier and thought I'd share.

For those who watch the heavens we may have a couple of excellent nights of viewing an incredible light show as Earth passes through the accumulated debris cloud of several centuries of comet 239P/linear. 
Some reports go as high as four-hundred falling stars per hour at peak, some as high as a thousand, with a possible meteor storm and fireballs of yet undetermined size. 
The debris will enter the atmosphere slowly and the bright tracings as they fall will be brighter and slower than usual. 
If you can get away from city lights, it might be memorable as the comet comes in closer to our planet than any we have records of in our time. 
It is quite old and ready to break up after the latest pass at perihelion (closet approach to the sun where it heats and sheds mass), and it's possible it could be better for that reason, though nothing is guaranteed in that it could fizzle out, as with comet Ison, but it's good odds for viewing. 
The northern hemisphere (U.S. and Canada) is at a singular advantage in this one, and if you look to the northern skies for several nights before and after the target dates you may still get to see some additional tracers in the darkened atmosphere. 
Look to the northwest in the constellation of the Camelopardalis, between dark and dawn as the radiant allows clearer viewing at this time of month. 

 

[BudreauReye]

Thanks, Biff!  Do you know if there is a best time of night for viewing?

 

[Biff Johnson]

Thanks, Biff!  Do you know if there is a best time of night for viewing?

An hour or two before dawn each day is best, I think, amigo, but it may be spectacular all night long.

 

[BudreauReye]

Thanks for the information, Biff.  My grandfather and I used to sleep out in his front yard in West Texas in order to watch for meteorites falling.  We saw sputnik and telstar as well as a lot of nice meteorite showers.  I would always fall asleep about 4:00AM and he would sneak inside and eat an early breakfast of cheerios with cold coffee - that was a hold over from the Great Depression.  He swore it was better than cheerios with milk.  I must say that I did not believe him for a minute ... at least not about the cheerios and cold coffee. 

 

[Biff Johnson]

Thanks for the information, Biff.  My grandfather and I used to sleep out in his front yard in West Texas in order to watch for meteorites falling.  We saw sputnik and telstar as well as a lot of nice meteorite showers.  I would always fall asleep about 4:00AM and he would sneak inside and eat an early breakfast of cheerios with cold coffee - that was a hold over from the Great Depression.  He swore it was better than cheerios with milk.  I must say that I did not believe him for a minute ... at least not about the cheerios and cold coffee. 

West Texas, amigo? I live in Western Oregon now, but I'm an Odessa boy...well, I used to be. It's the best thing I liked about it, the stars at night after the dust settled. Here's to you and your excellent granddaughter and those memories, my friend. Good luck and happy watching, Bill.

 

[Aaron Carrara]

Thanks for sharing this Bill.  Cool and interesting stuff!

 

[texasdobbs]

Interesting indeed. . Thanks

 

[Biff Johnson]

Thanks for sharing this Bill.  Cool and interesting stuff!

Thank you in return, Aaron Carara, it's a pleasure to share with friends.

 

[Biff Johnson]

Interesting indeed. . Thanks

Gracious words, my amigo. Thank you,it's free, a celestial fireworks stand for all through a bit of easily gleaned information, offered to good people..

 

[BudreauReye]

West Texas, amigo? I live in Western Oregon now, but I'm an Odessa boy...well, I used to be. It's the best thing I liked about it, the stars at night after the dust settled. Here's to you and your excellent granddaughter and those memories, my friend. Good luck and happy watching, Bill.

The skies both night and day were the best part of the "landscape" as far as I was concerned growing up.  I grew up in Sweetwater.  We played football everywhere from Graham, Breckenridge and Abilene, up to Lubbock, down to San Angelo and out west to Big Spring, Monahans, Andrews, and out to Fort Stockton. Most of that land tended to be pretty flat.  As well as the night sky, traveling at night through that flat land with the little towns serving as light islands in the far distant darkness, was indeed a wonderous sight to feed one's imagination.  Little wonder that so many song writers have come out of the Lubbock area.  Some of those trips on away games were pretty long, and some pretty memorable, like a 41-41 tie at Littlefield.  Thankfully, they took their football seriously, and chartered greyhound buses for away games. 

I really could not wait to get away from there.  People do not really understand how far away it is from anywhere - probably more psychologically than physically.  I have grown to appreciate the deserts of the American Southwest, but if it can't have a few trees, at least it should have some serious up and down to it.  That's why when I travel back up there. I prefer to spend time in Alpine and Marfa down to Big Bend.  It is kinda of like the place I would rather like to think I grew up in, without any of those pesky real memories to encumber my reveries.    That area over by Odessa just over to Sweetwater ... well, it is so flat that you can see the Blue Northers before they leave Canada.  Lots of good folks live where we came from, and a lot of good people have left there over the years.

 Folks don't realize that that area down to the Rio Grande was not settled much until the railroads came through from the 1880's on.  Anybody my grandparents age or older were true pioneers.  As a child, my mother remembered riding a covered wagon in the early 1920's from the Ozarks down to Sweetwater as her family picked crops along the way to make a living.  I read an interesting story in the official history of Howard County, about travel in the area.  As late as the early 1920's, the roads were so bad that a bus trip from Lamesa to Big Springs was an overnight affair.  travelers had to spend the over night in a road house, and the bus company had to hire a shot gun guard to ride on the bus to protect the travelers on the road and overnight.  Even as late as the early 1920's, banditos on horseback would still make periodic forays across the Rio Grande up into West Texas.  That story described a particular point along the way where the rutted road crossing an arroyo was a perfect set up for wanna be bus robbers.  They even set up a time schedule that changed from day to day to try to confuse the bandits.

Oh!  And Biff!  I have neither any children, nor any grand children, at least that I know of - that's my story and I am sticking to it! 

 

[Biff Johnson]

The skies both night and day were the best part of the "landscape" as far as I was concerned growing up.  I grew up in Sweetwater.  We played football everywhere from Graham, Breckenridge and Abilene, up to Lubbock, down to San Angelo and out west to Big Spring, Monahans, Andrews, and out to Fort Stockton. Most of that land tended to be pretty flat.  As well as the night sky, traveling at night through that flat land with the little towns serving as light islands in the far distant darkness, was indeed a wonderous sight to feed one's imagination.  Little wonder that so many song writers have come out of the Lubbock area.  Some of those trips on away games were pretty long, and some pretty memorable, like a 41-41 tie at Littlefield.  Thankfully, they took their football seriously, and chartered greyhound buses for away games. 

I really could not wait to get away from there.  People do not really understand how far away it is from anywhere - probably more psychologically than physically.  I have grown to appreciate the deserts of the American Southwest, but if it can't have a few trees, at least it should have some serious up and down to it.  That's why when I travel back up there. I prefer to spend time in Alpine and Marfa down to Big Bend.  It is kinda of like the place I would rather like to think I grew up in, without any of those pesky real memories to encumber my reveries.    That area over by Odessa just over to Sweetwater ... well, it is so flat that you can see the Blue Northers before they leave Canada.  Lots of good folks live where we came from, and a lot of good people have left there over the years.

 Folks don't realize that that area down to the Rio Grande was not settled much until the railroads came through from the 1880's on.  Anybody my grandparents age or older were true pioneers.  As a child, my mother remembered riding a covered wagon in the early 1920's from the Ozarks down to Sweetwater as her family picked crops along the way to make a living.  I read an interesting story in the official history of Howard County, about travel in the area.  As late as the early 1920's, the roads were so bad that a bus trip from Lamesa to Big Springs was an overnight affair.  travelers had to spend the over night in a road house, and the bus company had to hire a shot gun guard to ride on the bus to protect the travelers on the road and overnight.  Even as late as the early 1920's, banditos on horseback would still make periodic forays across the Rio Grande up into West Texas.  That story described a particular point along the way where the rutted road crossing an arroyo was a perfect set up for wanna be bus robbers.  They even set up a time schedule that changed from day to day to try to confuse the bandits.

Oh!  And Biff!  I have neither any children, nor any grand children, at least that I know of - that's my story and I am sticking to it! 

My dad and mom were both born in 1921 and this is on of the first times I've heard of others getting around back then in wagons, but it happened quite frequently. My dad was from San Angelo and he had an old photograph where a newspaper man from San Angelo to where a huge hailstorm hit the three wagons they were in, between Ballinger and San Angelo. They had to get under the wagons and the hail beat all the horses to death. Old school storm season in those days, I guess. At least you guys had water in Sweetwater, they don't make a lot of it further West. We vacationed here in Oregon a number of times and I fell hard for the place. It's cool and green, but it lacks Texans, a tradeoff I had to settle for. 

 

[BudreauReye]

Biff, I love stories of the old times.  A lot of people don't realize how far we have come in the last hundred years.  My father was borne in West, Texas in 1905 and grew up in Colorado City.  My mother was born in Sweetwater on April 6, 1917, the day the US Congress declared war on Germany in WWI.  Her father kidded her unmercifully about what the world wide cost was when she decided to be born! 

Speaking of those two.  Not long after my grandfather brought his family back from the Ozarks to Sweetwater in that covered wagon he bought his first automobile, a Ford Model T.  My mother was his first child and he took her everywhere with him in that Model T.  On the road to San Angelo south of Sweetwater, the road went straight up the side of the shallowest part of a mesa called Nine Mile Mountain instead of traversing back and forth to make it an easier grade to negotiate.  The road was just compacted dirt, and the cars of the time mostly had fairly narrow wheels like the Model T.  Especially when it rained, the road would get pretty slick and the best way to get up that mesa was to sink your wheels into the deep, narrow ruts made by those narrow tires and just hope for the best.  On just such a day, my grandfather and his daughter, my mother, were chugging up that mesa.  My mother was watching her father and her father was watching her watch him.  Now, to hear my mother tell it, he was all swelled up with pride with the way his daughter was watching him drive. 

Now, I do not know if you know this but on those old Model T's, the steering wheel was attached to the steering column simply by a nut attached to a bolt on the steering column.  Well to hear the way she told it, that nut had worked loose, and there my grandpa was all swelled with pride at how his daughter seemed so impressed with his superior driving ability.  He said to her, "So, you think your Dad is doing a pretty good job, huh?"  She looked up wonderingly at him and said, "Pops!  When I grow up I want to be as good a driver as you!"  He said, "Why is that!"  According to her, she said, "'Cause when anybody can drive when the steering wheel is no where near touching the car, I think they are just about the bestest driver ever!" 

Now according to her, he just about had a heart attack.  But truth be told, once you got your wheels down in those deep, narrow ruts, it was pretty near impossible to get them out until you got up to the top or down to the bottom of the mesa.  I am not so sure about this, but I am pretty sure that my granddad set his then young daughter up for that, and as they got older, I have to say that they sure liked telling that story on each other, from different perspectives, of course! 

Maybe we need to have story thread, Huh? 

 

[BudreauReye]

t least you guys had water in Sweetwater, they don't make a lot of it further West. We vacationed here in Oregon a number of times and I fell hard for the place. It's cool and green, but it lacks Texans, a tradeoff I had to settle for. 

You live in one of the best places, I think.  I have traveled through Washington State and British Columbia.  My wife lived in San Francisco for a while so I had flown into there a couple of times.  My wife and I like to take back roads car vacations with our two big Catahoulas.  We pretty much have it down to a science.  A couple of years ago we drove to California and drove the Pacific Coast Highway from LA to Fort  Bragg with side trips inland where appropriate.  We did not have time to see Crater Lake and the rest of Oregon.  We are gonna do it one of these days, though.  Crater Lake is one of those childhood fantasy destinations for me like the Grand Canyon or some such.  Cold weather travel fits us best.  I never get tired of driving back and forth across New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah.

We did have a few small resevoirs around Sweetwater, but the water is very alkaline and salty.  Back in the 1800's there was a trading post called Blue Goose on a creek at the bottom of what is now Lake Sweetwater.  You are not going to believe this but, when we were kids in Jr High, they taught us that a buckboard carrying supplies for the trading post had a sack of sugar fall off in th creek that ran down past the trading post.  Supposedly, a friendly Indian crossing the creek down stream, got off of his horse, and took a dring of the usually alkaline salty stream, stood up, looked off into the distance like Tonto and under his breath, said, "Mmmm!  Sweet water!"  I am not lying, that was a part of the cirriculum of my seventh grade Texas History class. Last time I checked in the early eighties, it was still a part of the Official Nolan County History at the local museum. Little wonder that I was ready to get out of there at my first chance! 

 

[Biff Johnson]

Biff, I love stories of the old times.  A lot of people don't realize how far we have come in the last hundred years.  My father was borne in West, Texas in 1905 and grew up in Colorado City.  My mother was born in Sweetwater on April 6, 1917, the day the US Congress declared war on Germany in WWI.  Her father kidded her unmercifully about what the world wide cost was when she decided to be born! 

Speaking of those two.  Not long after my grandfather brought his family back from the Ozarks to Sweetwater in that covered wagon he bought his first automobile, a Ford Model T.  My mother was his first child and he took her everywhere with him in that Model T.  On the road to San Angelo south of Sweetwater, the road went straight up the side of the shallowest part of a mesa called Nine Mile Mountain instead of traversing back and forth to make it an easier grade to negotiate.  The road was just compacted dirt, and the cars of the time mostly had fairly narrow wheels like the Model T.  Especially when it rained, the road would get pretty slick and the best way to get up that mesa was to sink your wheels into the deep, narrow ruts made by those narrow tires and just hope for the best.  On just such a day, my grandfather and his daughter, my mother, were chugging up that mesa.  My mother was watching her father and her father was watching her watch him.  Now, to hear my mother tell it, he was all swelled up with pride with the way his daughter was watching him drive. 

Now, I do not know if you know this but on those old Model T's, the steering wheel was attached to the steering column simply by a nut attached to a bolt on the steering column.  Well to hear the way she told it, that nut had worked loose, and there my grandpa was all swelled with pride at how his daughter seemed so impressed with his superior driving ability.  He said to her, "So, you think your Dad is doing a pretty good job, huh?"  She looked up wonderingly at him and said, "Pops!  When I grow up I want to be as good a driver as you!"  He said, "Why is that!"  According to her, she said, "'Cause when anybody can drive when the steering wheel is no where near touching the car, I think they are just about the bestest driver ever!" 

Now according to her, he just about had a heart attack.  But truth be told, once you got your wheels down in those deep, narrow ruts, it was pretty near impossible to get them out until you got up to the top or down to the bottom of the mesa.  I am not so sure about this, but I am pretty sure that my granddad set his then young daughter up for that, and as they got older, I have to say that they sure liked telling that story on each other, from different perspectives, of course! 

Maybe we need to have story thread, Huh? 

That's a pretty cool thought, my friend, even if only to give some of the youngsters a view of how things used to be, as you say, not so long ago. My mom is from Maybank and we have a lot of Cherokee/Caddo on that side, Comanche on my dad' side, like lots of us from Texas, just to round out the Scot/Irish. And there are attendant stories of each, always a little gold to be had, and no doubt the experiences of the others here would be just as interesting to find out.

 

[Duke C #11]

If you've never attended a star party at McDonald Observatory, you have missed out.

 

[Biff Johnson]

If you've never attended a star party at McDonald Observatory, you have missed out.

Duke C #11 It's the one thing I wish I had gotten around to doing, down to home. I've been to Ft. Davis, Marfa, Alpine and Presidio too many times to count, but it never matched up. The air at night there is amazingly clear, and ti would be the prime location to watch from.

 

[BudreauReye]

Duke C #11 It's the one thing I wish I had gotten around to doing, down to home. I've been to Ft. Davis, Marfa, Alpine and Presidio too many times to count, but it never matched up. The air at night there is amazingly clear, and ti would be the prime location to watch from.

We like to stay in Alpine because there is a better selection of restaurants there and at least there is a supermarket and a drug store.  We like to go up to Ft. Davis for lunch and up through and around the Davis Mountains and back through Marfa and dinner at the Paisano Hotel on one day.  That leaves the rest of the days of a trip to concentrate on Big Bend.  A couple of years ago we did the drive from Lajitas to Presidio.  We had driven part way and back in the past, but not the whole way.  That has to be the best or the second best drive in Texas as far as I am concerned. (Maybe the best is from Kerrville to Hunt and down to Lost Maples.)  We drove late in the day and a thunderstorm roared through as we got closer to Presidio. Man!  That was beautiful!  Then a dust storm roared through Presidio as we drove through.  I hate to say it but Presidio is one of the ugliest towns that I have ever seen in the USA - that dust storm did not help it any.  It is too bad that the owner of La Kiva in Terlingua was found dead some time ago.  La Kiva has not reopened because of liquor license and building code issues and it is beginning to look like it may not be able to reopen.

 

[Biff Johnson]

We like to stay in Alpine because there is a better selection of restaurants there and at least there is a supermarket and a drug store.  We like to go up to Ft. Davis for lunch and up through and around the Davis Mountains and back through Marfa and dinner at the Paisano Hotel on one day.  That leaves the rest of the days of a trip to concentrate on Big Bend.  A couple of years ago we did the drive from Lajitas to Presidio.  We had driven part way and back in the past, but not the whole way.  That has to be the best or the second best drive in Texas as far as I am concerned. (Maybe the best is from Kerrville to Hunt and down to Lost Maples.)  We drove late in the day and a thunderstorm roared through as we got closer to Presidio. Man!  That was beautiful!  Then a dust storm roared through Presidio as we drove through.  I hate to say it but Presidio is one of the ugliest towns that I have ever seen in the USA - that dust storm did not help it any.  It is too bad that the owner of La Kiva in Terlingua was found dead some time ago.  La Kiva has not reopened because of liquor license and building code issues and it is beginning to look like it may not be able to reopen.

That's a shame. And yes, the Kerrville drive is one of my favorites, as well. I used to know a guy who had cabins on the Frio, and we were all over that whole area as much as we could be. You know well from our dust days that attraction of it. It's what lured me here for the count. I was back in Texas in 96' ''97' with TYC in Brownwood, but when I was offered a better position back out here, I had to go and haven't been back since, other than to visit. I will always love Texas more than any other place, but in natural beauty it doesn't compare, while in terms of people Texas exceeds all other places in the beauty and richness of the history and tradition of our collective peoples...twin facts, IMO.