Post-AOC-Social Night Hike & Perseid Meteor Shower at Mason Mill Park

IN a NUTSHELL:  Meteors are bits of fast-moving comet or asteroid debris that produce sudden streaks of light when they collide with the earth's atmosphere.  Since most meteors when viewed at night appear to be about the same brightness as stars they're also known as "Shooting Stars" or "Falling Stars."  The spectacular Perseid Meteor Shower will be at or near its annual peak on the night of August 12th-13th.
  I hope you'll "double dip" by first attending our early evening AOC August Social in Sandy Springs - then follow it up with this fun late evening outdoor event.  We'll begin with a short hike on the paved Mason Mill Park "PATH Trail" and then, weather permitting, enjoy some great meteor viewing and stargazing!  A big "bonus" this year for this most famous of meteor showers will be the absence of moonlight which if present would greatly reduce the visibility of these "shooting stars" and other heavenly objects.  The tiny crescent moon won't rise until 5:10 AM Thursday morning.  Although our good old "Naked Eyes" are best for meteor viewing, another "bonus" is that my friend Herm plans to bring his big telescope and show us some amazing cosmic objects, weather permitting, including the rings of Saturn and the 2- million-light-years-away Andromeda Galaxy!
  By the way, thanks to my friend Angela Nelson for offering a second AOC alternative for viewing the Perseids.  Her group will observe between 1:00 and 4:00 AM Thursday in the spacious dark-sky parking lot near the summit of GA's highest mountain, Brasstown Bald.  Some of you meteor fans who are real "night owls" may wish to even "triple dip" - by first attending our AOC Social, then this event, and then drive up to join Angela, esp. if we have clear skies!

MEETUP SPOT and initial NIGHT HIKE:  We'll meet at 10:00 PM in Mason Mill Park's free parking lot—by the little stone restroom building.  See Directions below.  After introductions we'll hike about 2 miles to and from Medlock Park via the paved "PATH" trail.  Along the way we'll stop often to regroup, and enjoy the dark sky overhead and other nighttime sights and sounds.  Our total distance will be only about 2 miles with no steep sections.

METEOR GAZING + STARS & PLANETS:   En route back from the hike via the "PATH" trail there's a high boardwalk with a flat wooden deck.  It's just a 3- or 4-minute walk from our cars and is shielded from glaring streetlights, etc. by surrounding woods.  From the high deck, assuming the weather cooperates, we're likely to see numerous bright Perseids, as we did successfully a couple of years ago, and esp. since the deck is so close to the parking lot, anyone is welcome to "split" and head home whenever you choose.
For spotting meteors it's best just to relax supine on a beach towel or pad and stare upward with our naked eyes.  I can use my green laser pointer to point out other cool celestial objects including the meteor shower's "radiant" in Perseus, which will be high in the sky in the east during the event.  The bright planet Saturn will be overhead and as mentioned above we expect to have Herm's telescope on hand (and possibly other scopes) for observing its lovely rings - also can focus on some amazing deep-sky objects including the Andromeda Galaxy! 

MORE about the PERSEIDS and other METEOR SHOWERS:  During the 2nd week of August each year we have a very reliable "meteor shower" called the Perseids.  These meteors are known to originate from a "debris stream" of a periodic "parent comet" named Swift-Tuttle that orbits the sun every 133 years.  The Perseid meteor shower's debris stream points from the Earth toward the constellation Perseus where its "radiant" is located.
Annual meteor showers such as the Perseids are caused by debris deposited around the sun over millions of years by successive orbits of various comets. When a comet nears the sun, its nucleus sheds clouds of rubble that spread out along its orbit, creating a continuous debris stream moving in roughly the same orbit as the comet. Each time Earth passes through one of these streams the planet gets a meteor shower.
The particles' rapid collisions with the Earth's atmosphere causes the sky to glow with brief streaks of light, usually about the same brightness as stars - hence the nickname "shooting stars."  Most comet particles (a.k.a. "meteoroids") that become meteors are hardly bigger than grains of sand and completely vaporize as their bright streaks appear.  Larger comet particles can become bright "fireball meteors" that may streak all the way across the sky, and if they can survive the atmosphere's friction may actually hit the Earth as "meteorites."
The stream of a comet's debris particles colliding with the Earth can be likened to a blizzard of snowflakes hitting the windshield of a fast-moving car, and their radial pattern seems to come from a "bull's eye" at a particular "radiant" spot in space (as shown in the graphic above).  Although "meteor shower meteors" may appear as short streaks of light in any part of the sky, their paths when extended backward across the sky seem to all intersect at the same radiant.
On any given night there will be "sporadic" meteors streaking through various parts of the sky that are not associated with any particular comet and have no known radiant.

FOR EVEN MORE about the PERSEID METEOR SHOWER click on this link: http://www.amsmeteors.org/2015/08/perseids-2015-the-amateur-guide/

ABOUT the PARKS & TRAILS:  Mason Mill and Medlock are two adjoining DeKalb County parks just east of Clairmont Road that are conveniently connected via a network of scenic shady hiking/biking trails and boardwalks.  The mile-long South Peachtree Creek Trail is the main trail that links them, and like the "Silver Comet" was designed and built to the high standards of the "PATH Foundation."  It features a half-mile-long raised wooden deck through the forest canopy above the creek.  Another recently completed portion of this trail is an amazing high wooden walkway and deck that cross the railroad tracks and give hikers nice views of ruins of the early-20th-Century "Decatur Waterworks."

FOR a COLOR MAP of SOUTH PEACHTREE CK TRAIL and its adjoining Mason Mill & Medlock parklands, etc. click on this link:  http://pathfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/south-peachtree-creek-trail.pdf

DIRECTIONS from the I-85 CLAIRMONT ROAD EXIT in NE METRO ATLANTA:  [Special Note:  If you plan to drive directly from the AOC Social to this event as I intend to do, you can reach the Clairmont exit easily in about 10 minutes as follows:  From the Hudson Grille go north on Roswell Rd 0.7 mile to Abernathy Rd, turn Right, and go just over 1 mile to the GA-400 South entrance ramp on your Right.  Take GA-400 South about 9 miles and exit onto I-85 North.  About 3 miles ahead exit to your Right at the Clairmont Rd exit and turn Right toward Decatur using the following standard "Mason Mill Park" numbered directions.]

1. From the I-85 "Clairmont" exit (Exit #91) take Clairmont Road southward (toward Decatur) 2.3 miles to the traffic light at McConnell Drive. (This is the first light south of the much busier junction and light at North Druid Hills Road).

2. Turn Left onto McConnell Drive, go 0.1 mile ahead and turn Right at the stop sign to stay on McConnell (following signs toward Mason Mill Park and DeKalb Tennis Center).

4. Almost immediately ahead turn Left at the Mason Mill Park entrance sign into the large free parking lot.  We'll gather by the stone Restroom building adjoining the children's playground near the Park entrance.

For a Map or Zoomable Satellite View of this Meetup Spot click the square blue & green "Event Location" icon near the top of this article.

GPS or GOOGLE.com/maps USERS:  You can augment the above directions by entering as your Destination the following Street Address or Lat/Lon Coordinates of the Mason Mill Park parking lot where we meet:
  1322 McConnell Drive, Decatur, GA 30033
  33.8079,-84.3066
The 1322 McConnell Drive address is a "virtual address" of the parking lot entrance gate.

Free Event with Free Parking!