There aren’t a lot of smart reasons for visiting Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in August. In fact, most of the campgrounds are closed between June 1 and Sept. 30 because it’s just too darn hot. But this year, we had a valid reason to head to the desert at the peak of summer: to see the Perseid meteor shower.
This annual heavenly phenomenon is so named because it appears in the northeast sky in the general area of the constellation Perseus, and the highest activity occurs in mid-August.
This year, the viewing of the meteor shower was to be extra special on the night of Aug. 12 because the sky would be moonless until about 4 a.m. Aug. 13. That, and my grandson’s interest in astrophysics, was enough to lure us to one of the hottest places in the country, and we lucked out.
Temperatures the previous week had hit 110-plus degrees; on Saturday we arrived, it was only 102 degrees, with a promised middle-of-the-night temperature in the mid-70s.
We didn’t know it at the time, but making hotel reservations early was fortuitous. “We are sold out,” the desk clerk at the Borrego Springs Resort and Spa told us at check-in. “Usually at this time, we are at about 50 to 60 percent, but with all the publicity about how good the meteor shower is going to be this year, we are at 100 percent.”
Borrego Springs also is a designated Dark Sky Community, so unlike the coast, there is little ambient light. Also, it’s a great big desert out there, so it’s easy to find solitude.
We set our alarms for 12:30 a.m., piled in the car with snacks and drinks, and headed for the nearby spot on the dead-end road that we had scoped out earlier while the sun still shone. We parked the car, pulled out our reclining beach chairs, looked skyward and waited for our eyes to acclimate.
I was surprised to find that it really does take 20 minutes and 30 minutes to develop “night eyes.” As the moments passed, more and more of the nighttime canopy appeared, with the number of visible stars, planets and satellites increasing by the minute.
Gazing at the inky sky with its millions of pinpoints of light — some pulsating (stars) and some steady (planets) — provided, at once, an understanding of the vastness of the universe and how we can’t possibly understand the vastness of the universe.
I tried to picture the four of us riding this Big Blue Marble through the asteroid debris field and the celestial meadow of planets, stars, moons, comets, black holes and other astrological phenomena that I’ve only seen in photos.
We saw a couple of dozen meteors streaking above Anza-Borrego (I know people who said they saw up to 60), and it was impossible to quell the reflex that prompted us to say, “There goes another one!” each time it happened.
My son and grandson stayed busy learning how to photograph the nighttime sky. It’s impossible to photograph a meteor unless you just happen to have the lens open and pointed in the exact location, but their cameras captured stars and galaxies that we couldn’t see with the naked eye.
Just after 4 a.m., a magnificent, glowing, sliver-of-a-moon appeared on the horizon and began ascending, blotting out the low-hanging stars. I was surprised at how much light could radiate from even this small slice. It was the bonus that capped off our perfect summer night in the desert.
Peak viewing of the 2024 Perseid meteor shower will occur from Aug. 11 to Aug. 13.
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