by Paul LeFevre
On June 28th to July 2nd, I attended the 7th Annual Mt. Lassen Star Party put on by The Astronomy Connection (http://www.observers.org). Mt. Lassen is a volcanic peak located in far Northern California, under clear dark skies and 8000+ feet of altitude.
Having recently moved to San Diego from San Francisco, the drive was a long one for me. Leaving home at 4:00 AM on the 28th put me at the Lassen Volcanic National Park entrance at 3:00 PM the same day, after traversing much of California. It was a fine feeling, though, to pull into the Lost Creek Campground and see familiar faces that I have sorely missed sitting by their tents welcoming the latest arrivals.
I set up camp quickly and had a bite to eat, then it was off to the observing area. For the first night, we caravaned up to the Devastated Area parking lot, located on the North-Eastern side of Lassen Peak at about 6000 ft. altitude. My main goal for this trip was to take astrophotographs with my newly-acquired 10" LX200, but I had my trusty 12.5" dob ("Papa Joe") along to use while the film was acquiring photons.
Twilight takes a long time to fade to darkness at 40-deg. N latitude in the middle of summer, and it was a good hour after the sun set before it started to get dark. As soon as it did, however, the sight of the Milky Way rising brightly all across the sky from the South-East to the North-East almost took my breath away. Conversation quieted down, and the assembled group (some 25 or so astronomers) got busy picking off deep-sky targets. The seeing at Devastated was somewhat soft, about 6-7 on a scale of ten, but the transparency was pretty good at about 8. I polar aligned the photography scope fairly quickly, set up some wide-field piggyback shots, then took the 12.5" dob in hand to see what the dark skies would yield. I spent most of the night touring old favorites with the dob: M13 in Hercules, M57 in Lyra, M51 and M101, M97 and M98, NGC 4565, the double-double, and more. Almost all of these showed more brightness than I was used to seeing, but with the soft seeing detail in the objects was only average. After searching for 10 minutes or so to find the Veil Nebula with no success (guess I've gotten used to GOTO), I asked Mark Wagner to come over and point my scope to it, and he went right there. Again, it was easy to follow the trail of this sweeping nebula around the stars as it appeared quite bright in the dark skies, but I was slightly disappointed by the lack of detail. Even after rising at 3:00 AM and 11 hours of driving, I stayed all night alternating between shooting pictures and observing with the dob, finally packing up at 4:00 AM and heading back to the campground.
The next night (Thursday) the group decided to head further up the road to Bumpass Hell, an observing area at about 8100 ft. on the Southern side of Lassen Peak. Jay Freeman, Ray Gralak, and John Gleason had been there the first night while the rest of us were at Devastated, and their glowing reports convinced us that was the place to be...we were not disappointed. There was a bit of general worry on first arrival, as a stiff breeze seemed to slide down off the snow-covered sides of the mountain right across the observing area, but the breeze died down shortly after sunset, and the night was clear, mostly still, and very dark. Seeing at Bumpass was easily 8-9, with transparency at about the same level. Subtle details in objects that had escaped me the night before now stood out with stark contrast, and I spent the time while exposures were running going over many of the same objects I had visited the night before. The Milky Way from Bumpass had the appearance of sprinkles of sugar, so crisp and detailed that I also spent quite a bit of time just scanning the sky naked-eye or poking around interesting regions with my small (8x32) binoculars. This was the kind of glorious night that astronomers dream about!
Friday night we were back to Bumpass Hell -- there was little discussion about location after the wonderful night we had on Thursday. By this time I was very tired, staying up all night two nights in a row and not sleeping in nearly as much as I would have liked to! It was a little difficult to sleep because of the daytime heat, but the main thing that got me up during the day was the chance to chat with my old friends from TAC. Sleep be damned, this was just too good an opportunity to pass up with wonderful astronomy and night and great company during the day!
My fatigue caught up with me a bit on Friday night, though, as I caught myself making mistakes in my imaging routine (from forgetfulness!), and made a few more I didn't catch until later. By 3:00 AM on Saturday morning, I had pushed myself as far as I could go, and after starting an exposure then sitting in the car to "rest for a minute," I was asleep almost immediately and didn't wake up until a nearby astronomer knocked on my window to tell me my exposure timer was beeping. Packing up was tough -- I was physically exhausted.
Saturday night was the advertised TAC public star party at Devasted -- back
to the soft seeing for the group! By now the number of astronomers had
swelled to around 50, and the parking lot at Devastated was packed with
telescopes of all types and sizes. I set up my 10" LX200 in alt-az mode,
and used the GOTO to good advantage to give the visitors quick tours of
interesting celestial sights. My favorite tactic to use with the visitors
was as follows: Slew to M51, and let them study it for a few moments so they
could see the face-on spiral galaxy structure and get an idea of what that
type of galaxy looked like from "up top." Then slew over to NGC 4565, a
similar spiral galaxy presented edge-on in the eyepiece, and showing
prominent dark lanes. I would then take their eyes from the telescope,
point up at the Milky Way, and get them to realize they were seeing a spiral
galaxy edge-on from the INSIDE...I really enjoyed the light in their eyes as
they realized what they were seeing. Some fun! I had at least 30 people
stop by and look through the scope, and enjoyed showing them the sky and
explaining why my scope made so much more noise than most of the others
around...
After the public left, I finished off the night by chasing down some dim
planetary nebulae in Aquila. Rashad Al-Mansour and I used my 10" LX200 and
his fine 12.5" home-built dob to compare views and find some of the more
elusive targets. We started with NGC 6804, a fairly large (1.1') and
diffuse but easy PN (mag 12.4), with a distinct non-circular shape. They
got much harder after that...it took identifying star fields to distinguish
NGC 6803 (mag 11.0, size 4") from a star, but with pumped-up magnification
(300X) and an OIII filter we could finally see it as non-stellar. NGC 6807
was even tougher (mag 13.8, size 2"), just barely detectable as non-stellar.
Next up was PK47-4.1; while larger than the others at 2.7' x 2.5', it is
very diffuse and hard to pick up at mag 13.1. Finally, the highlight of the
night for my little 10" scope: PK43-3.1; a mag 15.0 little blur (size 8.0")
that we acquired after much searching, blinking with filters, and gnashing
of teeth :) I didn't think my 10" would nail such a dim little planetary,
but once found it was obvious and affirmatively logged. A great way to
finish the night!
Sunday morning I slept in, then reluctantly packed up the tent and camping
gear for the long drive home. I was tired, somewhat dirty, certainly a bit
gamey...but I didn't want to leave. I would later find out that some of my
photographs turned out, and some didn't (see
http://www.slip.net/~lefevre/Lassen.htm). It would take me several days to
recuperate from the lack of sleep. However -- I wouldn't have missed this
trip for the world. Highlights? The kind of dark skies we usually only
dream about. Getting astrophoto advice and exchanging tips with the likes
of John Gleason (http://home.earthlink.net/~dvj/), Richard Navarette, and
Paul Sterngold. Watching Jay Reynolds Freeman knock off objects in Harvey.
Seeing Mark Wagner lead the pack of 18" Obsessions all bunched up together.
Chasing down dim planetaries with Rashad Al-Mansour. Listening to Jamie
Dillon and Richard Navarette make guitar music while I could barely keep my
eyes open. Getting to know Michelle Stone. Ray Gralak playing ignorant
star-party attendee. Many, many more...
By far the most enjoyable part of the trip, however, was the company of the
TAC group, and the time we spent chatting, telling jokes, and sitting around
waiting for darkness. Astronomy is a wonderful, fascinating hobby by
itself, but when practiced in the company of fine people it becomes an
experience that enriches my life beyond any description, and makes expensive
equipment, cold nights, and long drives all more than worth what they take.
God, I'm glad I found this hobby and these people!