Lassen

Wed. July 22, I jumped out of bed ready for my first trip to the dark skies of Lassen National Park. The skies in the S.F. Bay Area have been pretty poor all spring and summer so the opportunity to see just how well my newly made 8" Dobs would perform under dark sky conditions was the main reason I was so anxious for this day to arrive.

After loading all the gear I would need for a four day, four night outdoor trip I headed North, "Ah" I thought, "North to the land of inky dark skies." Three hours later I was passing Redding Ca. I was now headed East toward the mountains and a huge bank of cumulus clouds," What’s up with that?" I thought, after all the clouds that this past El Nino has laid over this amateur astronomer, the last thing I wanted to see was a cloud, cumulus stratocumulus or any other cloud variant, I was not a happy camper. But there was nothing left to do but push on and be positive.

As I was not the first to arrive at the TAC camp site I was greeted by a few other TAC members and then began the job of unpacking the car and setting up camp. One of them, Ken, had gotten there a day or two earlier and told the rest of us how great the skies were the night before, I was really getting stoked now!

Because I dislike being cramped my tent is a nice size so there was plenty of room for everything I dragged up from San Francisco. And as I spent more time in the tent than I had planed, it was a good thing, in this case size mattered. At least to me.

It was nice and hot, the skies were partly cloudy and it felt really good to be away from the hustle and bustle of the City. Birds singing, insects buzzing and Mosquitoes trying to steal a quart a day. "Ah Nature."

Not long after I had my little spot setup, other TAC members started to trickle in so that our little community was growing fast, tents started sprouting up like colorful mushrooms in this giant forest, voices and noises of unpacking and setup could be heard all around. "Boy this is just great. I thought to myself, "After months of waiting I was finally here." There were now less clouds in the sky and the anticipation of wonderful nighttime views were increasing with every minute.

But it was not be, soon after eating diner I looked skyward only to be slapped upside my head with more clouds! Damn was I dreaming? Am I still in San Francisco? What’s up with this? Well to make a sad story short the Stars did come out for about an hour, just long enough to make me want to scream, then they said goodnight pulled the clouds back over themselves and went to bed. Complete washout! This was no way to start an astronomy camping trip!

I was a little tried from the nonstop drive, and since there were no stars to be seen I turned in early. I listened and laughed at stories and jokes being told around a camp fire by some of the TAC’OS, this lifted my spirits as I drifted off to sleep hoping the next day would treat us well

I awoke Thursday morning to bright blue skies. "Hey this is more like it", I said as I prepared my morning meal. "A hardy breakfast, clean mountain air and clear blue skies, what a great way to start the day." I thought.

I had driven nonstop and was very low on fuel, so I went to fill up the tank at the Park store, by the time I got back to camp clouds had started to roll in. I decided to ignore them, that is until it started to rain! Well there was nothing to do about it except wait it out and hope that it would clear by nightfall. So into my tent I went.

Sure enough as I made my evening meal the skies started to clear up, just a few thunder clouds in the distance well West of our position. Everyone’s spirits lifted as they prepared to head up to the Devastated Area parking lot, which served as our observational platform. The sky all around us was clear and everyone got busy setting up their equipment.

As day turned to dusk Mother Nature put on a grand show. That very large cloud on the western horizon that had me worried suddenly lit up illuminated by lighting flashes inside it! This show lasted for about a half hour, I had seen this type of thing captured on film but to see it live was truly an awesome spectacle!

Darkness falls and we all start pointing scopes skyward in all directions. For me, my first night was spent mostly looking at objects that I had become familiar with at Fremont Peak.

I was please to see that my 8" Dobs was performing so well. M13 was gorgeous, it looked like huge snowball encrusted with diamonds! M5, M92, M22, all had a similar appearance and the granularity in each object was outstanding. M8, the Lagoon Nebula has to be one of the most magnificent object that one could hope to see from a dark site, words cannot express the beauty that is seen. No picture that I have ever seen looks as good as what I was able to see through my scope, the only thing that comes close is the drawing of M8 in the book The Messier Album. The Wild Duck M11 was just full of stars! And I was able, for the first time to see structure that gives it the name. The globular M2 was also nice, I could just detect the dust lane that runs through it. M20’s Y shaped dust lane was not as obvious as I had hoped, but looked good none the less

As I am a totally new deep sky observing it was my impression the sky above me was really good, but according to experienced Lassen observers the sky was mediocre at best. I was told this right after viewing the 13th mag. star in the Helix Nebula! God how much better would or could it get! This is what I have been waiting and praying for since May.

I guess it was around 2:00am when we started to break down, the clouds began to roll in and most of us were tired, so we headed back to camp. After an hour of fun conversation it was time for bed and thoughts of what tomorrow would bring.

What Friday brought was more clouds and more RAIN! It rained for at least 2 hours during the afternoon. Hail and flash floods were reported by other TAC members who had gone on day trips. I had hoped that the sky would ring itself out by nightfall, but nooooo we were force to shoot sucker holes, and good views were few and far between. Soooooo back to camp and roaring camp fire with lots of jokes to warm us up, not to mention the Fosters. But even the good times around the camp fire could not hide the disappointment felt by many in our little community so when I awoke Saturday morning to cloud filled sky, I was not surprised to see that quit a few of us had had enough and were packing up for a early trip home.

I had a brief thought of doing the same, but even though it hadn’t turned out to be the best I had hoped for, it was still very relaxing, and one more day away from the City would certainly help not hurt me. And as it turned out Saturday night was simply the best!

After we all eat diner we looked up to noting but BLUE SKY! Devastated Area here I come!

Saturday night was also the night planned for the public star party. On Thursday night there were 31 scopes counted in the parking lot, tonight the count was more like 10 or 12.

As the sun winked out on the horizon the public started arriving. There was a thin crescent Moon low in the sky following the Sun westward. I had been telling the people that were gathering around me about my hand made $300 scope. I turn the scope on the Moon to give my audience a view. At 55x the view generated a lot of wow’s and ah’s. As the line to look at the Moon grew I talked about my experience building my telescope. And when it finally got dark they were amazed at the sights to be seen in a hand made instrument.

Maybe because my scope was on the Moon early or the fact that I was explaining the process of making a scope, the number of people around me grew, and so did my enthusiasm, while showing the kids and adults some of the nighttime showpieces I talked and talk about the joys to be had when one really gets into this hobby. I talked about the importance of math and reading and how sorry I was that I was never able to see how important and beneficial a solid math background could mean to my future. And I could see in the kids eyes, that they believed what I was saying, and as I as I talked about gravity holding globular clusters together, and how angular momentum caused Arcturus to leave it’s home galaxy and wonder the universe, based on their questions I could sense their minds opening up to new possibilities.

From my point of view, the Star Party was rousing success, everyone that had an opportunity to look through the telescopes assembled at Devastated were treated to the darkest skies I have seen since becoming an astronomer.

After the public event was over, we all got busy. I had a list of faint object that I wanted to view. Again I wanted to know the limits of my scope, but I was first drawn to the Whirlpool Galaxy. It was amazing! The connecting bridge jump right out at me, 2 dust lanes were prominent and with averted vision I could see 3, this was a real treat! I was pleased to find that my 8" was also able to pick out some faint fuzzies, four 12th mag galaxies a couple of 11.5 mag planetarys and I was even able to detect a bit of graininess in NGC 7006, about 195,000 LY away. The seeing was not favorable for viewing the Planets however. Jupiter appeared mushy and while I could see the shadow of the Planet Saturn on it’s rings and Cassini’s division not much else could be seen, it was just to low in the sky.

After 6 wonderful hours under the stars I finally packed up and headed back to my tent, it 4:30 AM and in a few hours I would be dragging myself, kicking and screaming back to San Francisco.

Sunday morning broke with clear sunny skies. After breakfast I packed up my things ready for the trip home, I stopped by the Park Store to fill up my tank. While talking to Mark and Richard in front of the store, I was surprised to see one of the kids who look through my scope and listened to my entire presentation at the Star Party the night before. He was there with his Mother, and she said, that all her son talked about after leaving the Star Party was building himself his own telescope so he could that he too could study the stars. For me, this was the icing on the cake!

Jane Houston told me a story about a 12 year old kid who was walking in San Francisco one night, and saw John Dobson looking skyward using a funny telescope. The Kid asked if he could take a look and John said sure. This Kid was blown away by what he saw through John’s scope, and it changed his life. That Kid is now grown up and is now one of the men who run and operate the Keck Telescope in Hawaii

I told the people gathered around me at the Star Party that building your own scope enabled them to walk in the foot prints of Isaac Newton, with this Kid determined to build his own scope I feel that I have walk in the foot prints of Newton and Dobson. I don’t know what my 12 year old will turn out to be, but I know I gave him a good start.

I was told that this was the worst year that TAC has had at Lassen. For me the one good night and the one great night were enough to let me know that I would be back. Next year or whenever the group decides to go I will be there, ready to enjoy the heavens and the TAC community.