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by Jay Reynolds Freeman
I enjoyed my visit to the Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society's Sierra Nevada site in June so much that I joined, so I could go back. On Saturday, July 10, I loaded Harvey, the Celestron 14, into my Geo Metro, and set off across California's Great Valley.
It was hot, and cumulus and cumulonimbus buildups topped the southern Sierra, as far I could see. I worried that my drive would be rewarded only with a view of clouds. Yet as I entered the foothills, conditions improved. Temperature dropped as I climbed, and I saw that most of the cloud cover lay south and southeast of the site.
I checked into a lazy motel in Colfax, paying for two nights so I could sleep late the next day. I bought munchies at the grocery across the street, and looked for the cats I had fed last trip, but they were sensibly hiding from the heat, and even sharp cheddar would not lure them out. So I continued onward. I arrived at the paved setup area, a bit above the 5000-foot line, just before sunset.
There were lots of people and lots of telescopes, almost as many as at the barbecue in June. I found a space, then found someone to ask if there was anything special newcomers should do, and since there wasn't, I had plenty of time to set up my telescope. A band of altocumulus lay southeast, and drifted slowly closer as twilight deepened, but soon began to dissipate. Before long, it was clear.
While the sky was still light, I looked at a few double stars to check seeing. It wasn't as good as last month, or as at Mount Hamilton the night before -- I could not separate either Antares or the close pair of nu Scorpii. No matter, I had lots of other stuff to look at. Yet it wasn't dark, so I spent a while chatting with neighbors. I had bought lots of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies in Colfax, for bribes, gratuities, and friendship. It's always easier to make friends when you have chocolate. The person on my left had a truss-tube Dobson on whose woodwork he had executed a finish that rivaled his primary coating for smoothness and reflectivity. I admired the workmanship while he ate a cookie. To the right and behind me was an experienced telescopist with some less knowledgeable guests. They were all runners, who appreciated the value of carbohydrates so much that they had brought their own cookies. So alas and alack, I had no choice but to eat the rest of mine all by myself. It would never do to waste them.
A few people recognized Harvey from the June event, or remembered that I had shown them Pluto then, and wandered by. Nobody remembers me, but Pluto is something special. I was going to show them the Plutocrats' Official Secret Handshake, but since I was still a newcomer, I thought perhaps I had best forbear.
My cats and dogs list has three parts -- open clusters, planetary nebulae (courtesy of Jay McNeil), and everything else. The open clusters are particularly well suited to so-so seeing, and there were lots of them in the Scorpius / Ophiuchus / Sagittarius Milky Way, that I thought I had better look at while I had a clear and dark southern horizon. So I put in my 40 mm Vernonscope Erfle eyepiece, and went hunting. In an hour or two I had logged more than thirty that I had never seen before, none with NGC numbers, and none difficult. Then, with a little more magnification, I chased after non-NGC globular clusters in the same area. Using my 16 mm Brandon, at 244x, I had another not entirely convincing view of Grindlay 1, plus three or four Terzan globulars, as well as Ton 2 and Arp 2.
The crew beside me had been using their friend's eight-inch, and wanted a look through my larger telescope, so I switched back to 98x and gave a brief tour of showcase objects. I showed M27 -- they had already looked at the Ring Nebula and were curious about another planetary -- and M17. Andromeda was rising, so I found M31 and presented several vistas of it, one showing a couple of dark lanes and another with M32 in the field. Finally, we looked at the arc of the Veil Nebula that has 52 Cygni superimposed. I often use a nebular filter on this object, but on that night I thought the long, irregular will-o'-the-wispy streak did well enough without one.
Next I pointed Harvey at NGC 7331 and its environs. This relatively edge-on spiral is a fine example for telescopes too large to take in all of M31 in one view, and there are several other objects not far away. Millennium Star Atlas shows some eight garden-variety NGC galaxies within a few degrees, plus five more in the tight grouping of Stephan's Quintet. With one or another of 98x and 244x, I found them all, including positive identification of each of the five members of the Quintet. I had not looked at Stefan's Quintet in the C-14 for a while; it was easier than I remember it. The last few times, I was not using as much magnification as 244x, which perhaps explains the difference.
I also looked at Hickson 88, a group in Aquarius that contains four NGC galaxies bright enough for Millennium. I spotted all four; they were somewhat harder than was Stefan's Quintet, but by no means the toughest Hickson Group I have so far tried.
By this time it was past two in the morning, and I put Harvey to bed. After everything was back in the Geo, I wandered around the site, and found that most folks who had not left had sacked out. Only a few remained to watch Jupiter and Saturn, both just beginning to clear the ragged line of conifers to the east.
The drive back to Colfax was quiet. I arrived to find a local cat enjoying the cool night air; I gave her a snack. I lazed around till the coffee I had drunk began to wear off, then went to bed. The next day was very hot -- by the time I wandered out in midafternoon, the temperature in the shade was over 100 F. I killed time writing up observations and reading, then left the last of the cheese for the cats, descended into the heat of the valley, and drove back toward the Bay area. I stopped in Walnut Creek for a fine Indian dinner at Sargam, on North Civic, then returned home at just about dusk. I had a fine time observing in the Sierra, and will certainly go again.