On crash to southern Germany / France / Switserland
to observe the Perseid '92 outburst!
It all starts with a phone-call from Casper ter Kuile and Peter Jenniskens in the afternoon of August 10 1992. The weatherforecast was bad, so why not moving to a place with better conditions? So Casper went to Carl Johannink that evening and together with Romke Schievink they left Enschede at 03:00 UT on August 11th. We had breakfast near Venlo around 5:00 UT , enough time to wait for Marco Langbroek and Peter Jenniskens who observed last nights from Meterik. After we met each other at the Dutch/German border around 06:30 UT, we drove to the south over the German highways. Around 13:00 UT we were in Mulhouse, were we split up. Peter, Marco and Romke would try to find a place to observe more to the south. Casper ter Kuile and Carl Johannink would stay in this area. They first drove to the top of the Grand Ballon, the highest mountain of the Vogezes in eastern France. We had a beautiful sight of the Vogezes, the 'Schwarzwald' -mountains in Germany and the 'Rhein-bassin' in between. But as the afternoon continued more and more clouds moved over our heads, but disappearing again over the 'Rhein-bassin'. After a quick meal and one 'very special beer' ... ;-) we broke up and drove back again to Mulhouse to find a place in thsi bassin. A bit more to the south-east (near Rixheim) we found a nice hotel with good sight in all directions, so this should be it. Time was running out. Casper put up his camera's and Carl started observing a.s.a.p. when the first stars appeared round 19:45 UT . After a few minutes a beautiful lilla -5 Perseid moved through a part of the sky were the 'Big Dipper' was just visible. Some other bright meteors (0 to -3) appeared before another -6 lit up the northern sky. Poor Casper was still busy preparing the camera's, unaware of what happened, because he was some 100 meters away. Just when he was ready at ~ 20:10 UT the show seemed over. We observed until 23:30 UT , when the full moon and tiredness made an end to this night.
Marco, Peter and Romke observed from a countryside in Switserland. They too witnessed the last part of the show during twilight. But their bed for the night was a bit more unusual: a hay-stack surrounded by fruittrees (so they had breakfast nearby ...).
Carl Johannink
