Things have been busy so I'm just now getting a chance to write about this. As some of you may remember, I described the retreat site of my chorus as a possible viewing location. I had been there before and gazed at the sky with awe, but I had not been there with a telescope. This may not be the most scientific report, but the experience made such an impact on me that I had to share it.

The new moon was on June 5th, so the 6th and 7th were great nights for viewing. In my previous description of the retreat location, I was wrong about one thing in particular; even though this resort is in the middle of nowhere there is some light pollution from Lakeport in the southeast part of the sky. Fortunately, it wasn't bad and didn't particularly interefere with what turned out to be spectacular skies!

It was amazing! Many in our group came up the hill the second night we were there so I was able to share a great deal with people who wouldn't otherwise have ever noticed. It also turns out that one of our newer members is a professional astronomer. At first, I was intimidated by the idea of a "real" astronomer, but he's spent so much time on non-visual aspects of astronomy that we really complemented each other quite a bit. (He's also just a terrifically nice guy.) Between the two of us, we were able to find and identify quite a few objects and constellations without the benefit of much in the way of star charts. For instance, he pointed out Delphinus which I had never noticed before. With such dark skies, the dolphin shape was clearly visible and practically popped out of the skies.

I found M51 for the first time--turns out I'd been looking in the wrong place--it was readily apparent in both good and bad binoculars. Both it and its companion were clearly visible through my 4.5" Meade Newtonian. The two of us happily answered questions about double stars, Mars, galaxies, and the half-dozen satellites that various people spotted.

As the evening progressed and the skies got darker and more gorgeous, the Milky Way came up. This was the first time in my life that I've looked at it and really known what I was looking at. It was stunningly beautiful with rich, glowing details that were delicate and clear. A number of people commented that they'd never seen such detail; I still see it in my head and wonder at its beauty.

For me, the most incredible part of the night was when the part of the Milky Way above Sagitarrius rose high enough to be seen past the limited light pollution (which was only in that part of the sky). With the naked eye, several bright, blue glowing patches were obvious; through binoculars they resolved into clusters with nebulas (which, as I looked up later, were, of course, a group of the Messier objects). I couldn't believe that I'd never seen these objects before since they were so bright and easily visible. My reaction was that I must have just not noticed them here at home. Of course, when I looked from my backyard, I was barely able, with binoculars, to find one or two dim, fuzzy patches.

I've known and contrasted light-polluted skies with remote skies any number of times in my life, but it wasn't until these last few weeks that it hit home how severe the problem really is. At retreat, I saw a part of the sky strewn with blue jewels and glowing nebulas. They were incredibly beautiful, so many that I didn't even try to keep track. When I got home, there wasn't anything left but blurry, gray patches. It was actually demoralizing to the point that I didn't even care about reassembling the telescope until two weeks after returning from retreat.

Ironically, although the skies were dark and there was incredible contrast, the seeing through the scope was terrible. It was OK on low power, but with anything higher, the stars oscillated through all sorts of colors and were almost "posterized" due to distortion in the atmostphere. One of the nights, I waited until Jupiter finally peeked over the mountain top--it was behind the tallest peak in the east, naturally--and found it to be a white ball with no discernible detail even at low power. (In my backyard here in San Jose, I can nearly always see two bands.)

As for the logistics of the area, I had described it pretty accurately. The hill top where I set up is flat and has room for a fairly good sized group of people and easily room for between one and two dozen scopes of various sizes. I was concerned about the trek up the hill, but it was less than I remembered. I didn't have any difficulty carrying the scope peices up the hill in two trips. With a proper carrying case or dolly, it could easily be done in one.

I noted that Jupiter became visible over the eastern hill about an hour and forty-five minutes after rise. (I figured this out to be about 25 degrees of obstruction on that side.) In general, the eastern horizon is less obstructed than that, probably by about 5 degrees, since Jupiter rose directly over the peak of the hill. The hills slope up as they go around to the west which leaves a fairly tall hill/mountain directly west. I would guess that the tallest part probably has about 40 degrees of obstruction.

All in all, it was an incredible experience and one that I hope to repeat this winter when my chorus returns for rehearsals. We'll be there again in mid-November and I can hardly wait. Who knows? I might have to buy a better scope just for the occasion...