Campers hoping to witness the Perseids meteor showers were disappointed when the shooting stars were mostly blotted out by the twin killjoys of dust and the Moon. The annual shower's climax takes place in the first half of August as the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by the comet Swift-Tuttle. But this year, a minor sandstorm left dust particles suspended in the air for much of the evening, said Hasan al Hariri, the chief executive of the Dubai Astronomy Group, who led an expedition to the Margham area of Dubai to observe the spectacle. "There was not too much to see; it was sandy, although the sand gradually settled down, but also the Moon rose," he said. "The sky was quite bright because of the Moon." He said the turnout was unexpectedly large, with about 400 people showing up, compared with 150 last year. "It was just like an endless train of people." But the evening was not a complete waste. After arriving at the observation site at 11pm on Wednesday, the group spent three and a half hours setting up telescopes and completing a briefing on meteor showers before taking turns observing the Moon's craters and Jupiter, which shone brightly, as well as the occasional meteor. "We were a little disappointed, but whatever was there was better than nothing," he said. "People lay down on the ground, families next to each other, then you started to hear the 'oohs' and 'aahs' as they saw things in the sky." What they saw depended largely on chance. "Some had the luck to see three or four meteors," said Ankit Choudhery, 24, an Indian businessman who was camped out. "I saw about seven of them." "Because of the dust, we couldn't concentrate on the sky, because it was poking our eyes," he said, adding that it was best to lie down and look to the sky. "Sometimes people would just scream when they saw something spectacular." Others were more pragmatic. Saad Mufleh, 31, a Palestinian chemistry teacher who had been on several such outings, said it was just another aspect of stargazing. Last year he saw 20 meteors, but this year he saw only four. Meredith Carson, 31, a public relations professional, said she tried watching the shower from her balcony in Dubai, but the light pollution meant she could not see anything. She wanted to observe the meteors after seeing one last week, during the dimmer phase of the showers, in Jumeirah. "I come from Australia in the countryside and I see a lot of shooting stars but this ... it was a meteor that was bright and orange. It was burning," she said. "I haven't given up hope," she said, adding that she would look for the meteors in the sky again last night from her home. "I don't have enough faith in the meteor shower to drive out." Still, Ms. Carson's evening was also hardly a waste. "I'm a planespotter," she said. "While the meteors were disappointing, at least there were a lot of planes to watch." newsdesk@thenational.ae