(CNN) -- There wasn't a cloud in the sky early Friday when Dave Samuels trained his telescopes at the moon, hoping to catch a glimpse of a NASA rocket striking the lunar landscape.



The moon, shown shortly before NASA's rockets hit on Friday morning.



"We saw nothing," he said.



Samuels is vice president of the Fremont Peak Observatory near Monterey, California, which had invited members of the public to watch Friday's NASA mission through its telescopes.



The lunar strike happened shortly after 4:30 a.m. on the West Coast (7:30 a.m. ET).



NASA had encouraged everyone around the country to host "impact parties," saying the plume of dust generated by the lunar impact would be visible through "mid-sized backyard" telescopes 10 inches or larger. It said the chances of seeing the plume were greater for people living in areas that were still dark.



The space agency even posted an interactive map on its Web site so people could find "a public event near you."



NASA officials had said the impact of the Centaur upper-stage rocket would result in plumes of dust of more than 250 metric tons. After it hit, the debris was analyzed by a satellite -- launched along with the rocket -- that traveled through the dust cloud before its own impact on the moon.



The goal of the $79 million mission was to determine whether  there is water on the moon.



After the impact, NASA officials called the mission a success, saying the satellite sent back a good amount of data that now will be analyzed.



Jennifer Stracener of Vilonia, Arkansas, said she got up early to watch NASA's live telecast of the impact.



She was disappointed, and posted her reaction on CNN's iReport.com.



"These was no plume, no nothing," she said by phone. "It just kind of blacked out."



She said the telecast did not show the rocket's impact clearly.



"I was looking for some action -- something happening," she said. "I think a lot of people were, because they [NASA] hyped it up, you know. ... No one saw anything."



Stracener woke up her husband and two children to see the lunar crash. She said she wishes she hadn't.



Darrick Gray, a high school science teacher near Kansas City, Missouri, had planned to take some of his students to the nearby Powell Observatory to watch the lunar impact through their telescopes -- but they decided to skip the field trip because of bad weather.



"This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Gray had said beforehand.



Gray -- who is also the director of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City -- said he had hoped the mission would influence his students to think about pursuing careers in science.



"Being as we do live here in Missouri, we're away from the hub [of astronomy]," he explained. "We're not in Florida, we're not in Texas, we're not in Silicon Valley -- it's not something they're used to seeing.



"So any time you can show them something that's never been done, and they say, 'Oh this is pretty cool,' I think they buy into that."



NASA held an all-night party at Ames Research Center -- located just outside San Francisco -- which was directing the mission. There were movies, music, food and guest speakers, and it culminated with a live transmission of the lunar impact.



"I would have loved to see, you know, huge amounts of dust flying up and ejecta, but we didn't," said Liza Coe, who attended the Ames event. "I thought it was so neat being able to see just as we got closer and closer to the moon and realizing that that was really happening right now.



"It wasn't just a picture of the moon that somebody was putting up."



Back at Fremont Peak Observatory, even though most of the 50 people who attended the
What time did NASA ask people to wake up at? When did NASA crash a rocked into the moon? What time did the event occur? When did the rocket crash into the moon? Who crashed a rocket into the moon? When did the NASA rockets crash into the moon?
4:30 a.m. 4:30 a.m. on the West Coast shortly after 4:30 a.m. Friday morning. NASA Friday morning.
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