I used to live up in Quincy, CA, between 1975-80. I marveled at the dark skies, even though I didn't do any serious observing then. I have been observing for a year now, and during this time I have often thought about my home in the Sierras. I thought about all the places I used to travel to in Plumas County and knew there had to be some near-perfect, dark sky observing sites. I made it one of my goals this summer to go back to Plumas County and find one of its myriad dark sky locations. One of our TAC members wrote about Plumas-Eureka State Park (where I learned to ski). Yes, that would be good. But, when I read an observing report written by Steve Gottlieb about another Plumas County location and realized the passion and seriousness with which he, Jim Shields, and Ray Cash observed, I knew this was the place I wanted to pursue. August new moon weekend would be the last time I could go far to get to dark skies (without feeling guilty about ungraded papers and lessons not planned). I didn't have much time to spare and thanks to the openness and friendliness of Jim and Steve (and our e-mail system), I was making last minute plans to spend the weekend near Quincy.

I can't tell you about the intense anticipation I experienced, but I can tell you that my expectations of observing in Plumas County were met and then some. The real icing on the cake, however, was that Jim Shields and Steve Gottlieb came, too. Observing next to these "observing gods" was as awe inspiring as the dark sky itself. They called me over at various times to look through their telescopes to see objects like Abell 39 (for which I recorded, "Whoa! Fat!!), Sharpless 2-71, Palamar 11, and Palamar 12 (extremely faint, but had a definite glow), to name a few. To tell you the truth, I had never heard of the Abell list!! What an exciting learning opportunity!!

Friday night, in all honesty, was *the* best observing conditions I have yet experienced (OK, one year is not a lot, but there were many observing nights in that one year). Dusk fell. I remember that the glow of the setting sun had not yet vanished and yet the skies were already as good as I have seen Fremont Peak. By 9:30-10:00 the sky was aglow with the Milky Way and its stars. The dust lanes in the Milky Way had precise definition and contrasted sharply with the stars. I have been working on the Herschel 400 list and since I had not completed the objects in Sagittarius, I "hit" this constellation first before it would go to bed way before midnight. I started with NGC 6520 and 6540 (OCl) using my 10" Orion DSE. During my Messier hunt, open clusters were fairly easy to spot. But my confidence level in the Herschel list is not so high and when I landed on these objects, I asked Ray Gralak to verify with his 17.5" telescope. As soon as he landed on 6520, he excitedly called out, "Look at the black nebula around it!!" Black nebula? Sure enough, there was a prominent weaving of black nebula around it. I was so worried about identifying the object that I had missed seeing what else was there. I had to remind myself that observing means to take in the whole field of view, not just a mad hunt for one object. I continued and found NGC 6568 (big OCl), 6645 (this open cluster was so tiny it looked like just a cute fuzzy), 6583 (averted vision confirms with this tiny OCl), 6624, and 6638. At this point, some of the public had come by. Three young boys came over to my scope and I showed them M22. Then I put 6624 in the field of view and ask them if they could see something other than a star. "No," said Alex, "but one of the stars sure looks out of focus, like a it's got fuzz on it." I explained that it was a similar object as M22, only it was farther away, etc. I really enjoyed Alex. He was extremely sharp. However, I had long awaited to come to this place with its dark sky and I was *not* going to allow the public to use up *my* limited time there by me showing them M13, M7, etc. The thought came to me, though, that they could learn what amateur astronomers do in order to find an object. My next object was NGC 6638 (PlN). I asked them if they had ever found a city on a map. Yes? Great! I gave them the R&A and dec and they found it on the Tirion Atlas. Piece of cake for them. They loved it. Now we had to match up the map with the constellations in the sky. It took a little bit, but soon they were seeing stars that were too faint for me! (Hey! No fair!) We pointed the Telrad on the objects location, we looked, but no soap! Back to the drawing board. I told them that being an amateur astronomer takes patience, lots of patience. We did all that work and we didn't find our object. Check and repeat. Still nothing. I then told them I was going to cheat and go ask my friend Ray Gralak to help me. (Humor) We did find it in Ray's telescope and it was a brilliant aqua blue. The boys were elated to finally see what they had been searching for and to learn about planetary nubulae. I realized the error of my way was not factoring the tilt of the sky in the south. After that, I quickly found it in my telescope. Alex and his companions left with his dad soon thereafter. They were excited about being a part of an astronomy team for a short time. In about 20 years I'll begin to look for Alex's name in S&T.

The site of my telescope prevented me from doing in further work in Sagittarius as it was quickly plummeting toward Earth. I switched to Pegasus and found NGC 7331 (nice spiral galaxy), 7217 (round galaxy nestled among many stars), 7814 (very, very faint, but Steve confirmed its existence along with detecting elongation toward the lower right) and 7479--a super Barnard spiral galaxy. This was really special because as Steve Gottlieb pointed out, one of its "lower" spiral arms appears to "wrap" around the star closest to it and then come back toward the "top" of it, making the upper arm parallel to the lower. He showed me a picture of it in a book that made the second viewing more exciting.

I stopped at this point and called it a night. I went to my tent thoroughly content. No mosquitoes, no wind, and warm enough being bundled up. Who could ask for anything more??

Saturday night brought another wonderful observing session. The afternoon wind, however, did not completely die down, but amazingly enough, the seeing and transparency were not affected. I changed my strategy of observing. Why was I bothering with magnitude 8's and 9's which are visible at Fremont Peak? Why not go for the magnitude 12's and 13's which would be "easier" here. I went to Bootes and found NGC 5248, which had alluded me in the Bay Area, but was found much more readily here. It was described in a Herschel book as "bright, large, elongated, oval, bright nucleus." I think that is as seen by the Hubbell Telescope. This galaxy was faint even using a Richard's 19 mm wideview (exact name?).

I was then able to finish the Herschel 400's in Sagittarius this time: NGC 6522, 6569 (with 6568), 6642, 6528, and 6629. I was pointing and shooting so fast, I was knocking them off sometimes two at a time. Was I good, or what? Well, pride cometh before a fall...and I fell. The rest of the night was like pulling teeth. NGC 6440 and 6445 were extremely difficult. They were the last in Sagittarius and when I finished, I thought I had just delivered a baby. I was exhausted! But I moved on to Serpens and found the one NGC there: 6118. With a magnitude 12, this galaxy, again, had to be confirmed by Steve Gottlieb. It was extremely faint and diffused. Averted vision saved the night.

I wanted to look in Cygnus, but decided to wait until it was lower in the west, so off to Cassiopeia I went to find the darkest galaxy there, NGC 278 with 185. Don't ask me why these not-too-difficult galaxies turned out to be a 2-hour marathon hunt. I read my atlas upside down, I stood on my head in front of the telescope, I chanted, I petted the scope, gave it a hug. Nothing! Sadly, I said, I'll find them next time. It kills me to give up!! Some people started packing up about this time, but I knew I couldn't stop at such a disappointing time. Would Cygnus give me something now? It was plenty low enough at 2:30 am! Well, it did, but not without a fight. At magnitude 13.5, NGC 7008 (PlN) hung out in the middle of nowhere. Even with glasses on, my naked eye vision has difficulty picking out "regular" not-so-bright stars. Extremely frustrated, but persistent, I kept pointing my Telrad onto I-dunno-what. I was trying to pick out a double star (double/double?) near Cepheus. Finally, I was on! With a lucky measurement through the Telrad, voila! One more? Yes! I was the only one left observing, but I wanted one more: NGC 7128 (OCl). Richard Navarette and Mark Wagner came over to help (watch) so as not to leave me alone with the wild critters (Ray Gralak spotted a bear Sunday morning). Again I had to hop to an even dimmer double star to orient myself to the next field. There were what looked to be open clusters everywhere. How was I going to find 7128? Then something caught my eye--something very, very tiny. How could an open cluster be that small? Where were all the stars? I switched to a 10mm and found the object filled with tiny, pin-point stars. Bingo!! Confirmed by Richard and Mark who I think were amazed I even detected it, we all turned in for the night (4:00 a.m?)

The wind Saturday night, although it didn't harm the viewing, was a pain in the neck because it freely turned pages for me. What page was I on? Worse were the "sky watchers" who came to the site to kill time before their biking journey to Downeyville the next morning. Their ignorance about dark adaptation was annoying, but we didn't have to deal with them long. In fact, some of them came over for a quickie astronomy lesson.

I can't thank Steve Gottlieb and Jim Shields enough for their warm welcome and vast expertise. Even if there weren't any water, showers, or toilets (I learned to commune with nature in a new way), this trip gave me the satisfaction of having observed at one of many dark sky sites in Plumas County. I think I can face the teaching year now. :-)