This weekend, my husband Mojo and I went camping with some friends at San Luis Reservoir near the Pacheco Pass. These friends have a large RV and camped here last weekend. They enjoyed seeing the Milky Way spiraling overhead a week ago, and thought of us. They thought we might enjoy the horizons and dark skies at the San Luis Creek Campground, near the San Luis Reservoir.
We packed 4 telescopes in our 10 year old Toyota Camry, and joined them for the weekend. Before we left home, I was looking at the sun through my 6 inch F/9 homemade sun scope (named Dob Sun) and was just amazed at the beauty of the sunspots. I had seen some of the images on the internet but I must admit that the view through the eyepiece beats the photos hands down. The detail seems overexposed in most photos, in my opinion. Through the eyepiece, the subtle shades of grey and black were striking. These massive sunspots are almost undescribable!
So when we arrived at the campground, our friends did their RV thing, and we pitched our little tent, but not before taking telescope number one, a 80mm F/5 "Short Tube" reflector out of the trunk. We placed it on the GP mount, and affixed the Orion solar filter. In this disguise, solar "Max" was ready for some action.
I did a few sketches of the spots yesterday, Saturday 9/23 and this morning, Sunday 9/24. They can be found on our website at: http://www.whiteoaks.com/sketches/. Hope you enjoy them.