Palomar Mountain. Is there anyplace on earth that conjures up more dreams of astronomical daring do? Home of the 5 meter Hale telescope. The telescope that in the mid twentieth century transformed our scientific place in the universe. Home of the 1.2m Oschin Schmidt camera that created the Palomar Sky Survey, the definitive map of the northern heavens for decades.
Route 76 in San Diego County California strikes me as more of chore to drive road than it's sister route, Route 79 in Riverside County. They both run at the base of a ridge of mountains. Route 79 on the north side, her sister route 76 to the south. These mountains roughly parallel the Riverside County and San Diego County borders actually starting in the former and dipping east and south to end well into the latter.. Where the mountains end well to the east, the two routes join together and head for the Julian area and the Anza-Borrego desert beyond that. I drive the 79 all the time to the Orange County Astronomer's private site. But the 76, only on rare occasions.
Route 76 waste no time winding. It’s starts right off the I15. It does straighten out for a stretch through the Pala Indian reservation and then begins to wind again as it climbs from a meager few hundred feet above sea level to some 2000 feet above sea level. In certain spots along the route, the shoulders of the road are lined with huge flowering bushes. Other areas harbor large orange groves, while still others are large plant nurseries. Entire small mountains sides are lined with planted tress and bushes. As radio stations faded in and out I gave up searching for one with music I could stand and drove on with only my thoughts as music.
"How many amateur astronomers have made this drive?" Thousands for sure. Tens of thousands? And professionals astronomers? Surely hundreds if not thousands of the best and brightest astronomers of mid and late twentieth century made this same drive. Only recently has names like Keck and VLT eclipsed the instruments in this corner of California.
In my own childhood I had imagined this place numerous times, yet I could not really have known, or appreciated, the surrounding area. San Diego County road S6 branches off the Route 76 a few miles outside of Pauma Valley in or near the Rincon Indian reservation. Then the real fun begins. For the next seven miles and 3500 vertical feet the road slithers and snakes it's way up the south grade of Palomar Mountain like one seven mile long diamondback. As with any mountain road in these parts, the views are breathtaking. Breathtaking that is if you stop in along the roadside turnouts and look. But if you don't intend on stopping, it's best to keep both hands on the wheel and concentrate on what you are doing.
As you reach the junction of S6 and S7 you can turn left and continue on S6 which will take you in short order to the "Highway to the Stars". That's how the road sign reads. That road will dead end at perhaps the most famous observatory in all the world, Palomar Observatory. Today however, I created my own red shift as my taillights receded down East Grade Road away from the "Highway to the Stars". By earlier agreement with my e-friends in northern San Diego County I headed away from those hallowed grounds and in less the a quarter mile found the large dusty roadside turnout that would be my own personal "highway to the heavens" for the next 12 hours. Later that night, some partying rockers would drive by blasting Led Zepplin's Stairway To Heaven, how apropos.
It was 5:30pm Pacific Darkness Squandering Time. I’d driven three hours including time for stopping for provisions for the night. That’s not even as long as we'd enjoy true darkness that night. I had not come however solely to seek but the darkness. I had come to meet some e-friends I had never met. Two I have only know for a few months, one I have know through his writing and reports for a year or as he plied the skies of the San Francisco Bay Area with his 30cm home built Dobsonian. Then, he was hired away to San Diego for a job he could not refuse. My main mission was to meet and get to hang out with these astro e-buddies.
My secondary mission was to hope for Palomar's legendary arc second or sub-arc second seeing to try out some new astro toys. Specifically I had brought along a ‘new to me’ Pentax 7mm SMC orthoscopic, 4mm and 2.8mm Takahashi orthoscopic eyepieces, and an Astro-Physics 1.7x/2x convertible barlow. To this end, I had also brought along what I and many others consider one the best shallow sky instruments ever made, a f/8 130EDT APO refractor made in 1993 by Astro-Physic mount on an Astro-Physics 400GTO mount. With luck, the moon, and later Saturn and Jupiter, would help me find out how well these components worked together.
With me as well, a “new to me” binocular mount 12x60 binoculars. This pair was 'hand selected' after I sent the first pair back with collimation problems. I could not fused the images and neither could my wife. Another problem was just holding the binoculars against my glasses would cause the center focus wheel to turn and the eyepieces to retreat into the body of the binoculars. I think the pitch on the threads for the focusing mechanism is far to steep or course. They allowing smooth focusing, but also causing this maddening malady. Unfortunately, while well collimated, this new pair suffers from the same focusing faux pas. The collimation of this pair however is fine.
Within a few minutes of my arrival, my e-friend whop is transplanted from the Bay Area arrived. After exchanging hellos we stopped to surveyed the turnout and amazing vista spread before us. Being on the side of the mountain meant the horizon did have it's limits. It stretched from the Pacific in the west, on through the southwest to the city of Escondido, to Julian and the Anza-Borrego desert far off in the east. Our northern horizon was blocked from the northwest to the east northeast by the mountain. However Polaris itself would show in a gap down the road.
My friend's small compact car was packed to the gills with his 25cm LX200
and CCD imaging gear. This would be his first run with his “new to him” CCD
camera. So like me he was not concerned with the number of hours of
darkness. He wanted to gain experience. In a short time another e-friend
would join us with his 20cm LX200 and CCD camera, and before the sun started
to sink into the Pacific we'd be joined be yet another LX200, this one a
30cm and yet another CCD camera. I would be the lonely visual observer with
my puny little ‘finder scope’ of a refractor. The abuse we visual observers
have to suffer through! And the light pollution from their computer screens!
Oh the humanity!!
We set about the tasks of getting our scopes setup. I left the refractor off
the mount until I could sight through the bore hole in the RA axis at
Polaris. Moving the 400GTO tripod, mount, counterweights, and scope is a
real pain, literally. During this time I took some pictures with my digital
camera that I'll post to the net. I am also stitching a few panoramas
together to hopefully give all of you an idea for the spot.
Sunset for me was magical. As the sun began to slip into the Pacific my
friend pointed out Venus. This was the first time I’d seen Venus this
evening apparition and I scrambled to get my film camera out and take a few
pictures of the amazing orange sunset, Venus, the tops of the cloud cover
over the coastline call "the marine layer" and the mountains before us. It
was glorious! For me, if nothing else worked out during the night, that
view, in that place, at that time, with friends was worth it. It's a keeper.
I hope the pictures turn out.
As darkness fell we each started down are own highway to the stars.
Once I could see Polaris, I set about the task of polar aligning. Another
new item I had brought along was one of those bright yellow "emergency
jumpstart" batteries sold in k-mart and such. Mine came from Harbor Freight
and was order on the net. Inside it, a rechargeable 17 amp hour 12 volt
battery that was to run the 400GTO equatorial mount and it’s computer hand
controller. Or so I’d hoped. Roland Christen himself had warned people not
to skimp on supplying power to his mounts, and as usual, he was right. The
jumpstart unit did run the mount all night, but within a few hours after
starting out fully charged, the mount’s slews became erratic, eventually it
would start telling me objects were below the horizon that were clear not,
and finally the hand controller simply displayed garbage.
Prior to this night I had always run the mount off of AC power and had never
had a problem. Fortunately for me I am a somewhat accomplished star hopper
and was satisfied to let the jumpstart unit continue to run the tracking
motor and disconnected the hand controller. I moved the telescope manually
for most of the night using the computer only for the first few hours. To
fix the power problem I’ll do as Roland said in the first place and pick up
a deep cycle marine battery. That’s what my CCD buddies were using. I might
add however, these jumpstart type until would easily run a non-goto mount
like a Losmandy G11 or MI-250 all night long and most likely several nights
on a single charge.
Alongside me at my folding table, my choice of star atlas, Chris Marriot's
SkyMap Pro 6 running on my Dell laptop. I have two batteries for the Dell
and place both of them in the accessory bays as I did not need the CD-ROM
drive. The laptop ran for about 5 hours using the "maximum power saving"
setting without any problems. I did not need it to observe the Moon or the
gas giants so I turned it off. When I did it had well over half it’s battery
power left. I feel it would go 8 hours using it as an electronic atlas. Also
aiding me would be the Hatfield Lunar Atlas, Don Mentzel's Field Guide to
the Star and Planets, and a few printouts from the net. Notably the
Astronomical Society’s double star list.
One of my friends used his GPS to pinpoint our position and I punched the
coordinates into the 400GTO’s hand controller. Once Polaris was sighted
through the hollow R.A. axis I mount the big refractor and set about using
the Polaris polar alignment routine built into the mount. It only took two
iterations form Vega to Polaris and we were set.
Cars on the road did dog us periodically throughout the hours leading up to
midnight. But I could hear them coming before I could see their lights and
simply close my eyes and turn away. Those CCD boys were not so lucky. After
midnight there may have been a few cars but too few for me to recall. The
wind ebbed and flowed from 5 to 15 mph. But mostly below 10mph. Again no big
deal for us visual observers, however the higher gusts effected a few of my
friends' pictures, even on the 'superwedge'.
Until the Moon and gas giants were well placed for observing, I puttered
around with various objects, observing what my CCD buddies were doing,
testing the 12x60 binoculars, trying one of my friends' 11x80 Meade
binoculars and observing some double stars from the AL list.
Frankly the binoculars were a disappointment. After a build up given by some
online I found that only the center 50% of the field of view was sharp.
Stars began to become little arcs 50-60% of the way from the center of the
field of view and were worse and worse by the time they were at the edge.
Far worse I felt than the 10x50 UltraViews I have. Those have a field about
70-80% sharp. Now these binoculars only cost $95 USD so one can not
complain too loudly! They do after all have the light gathering power of the
60mm objectives. And you should know I am no connoisseur of binoculars so
one can't be sure that I am just too picky. I know you'd have to pay triple
or quadruple what I paid to get sharp to the edge or almost to the edge
views, but I had hoped for better than 50%. As I mentioned in part one, they
have a center focusing mechanism that moves far too easily with the slight
pressure on the eyepieces. Overall the body seemed well built and the fit
and finish were okay. The soft case they came in was barely big enough and
one has to struggle to get the rubber coated binos back in unless you put
them in a plastic bag. Had I viewed through them before buying, I’d not have
spent the money. Not that they are not a bargain, they may well be, but I
simply got no wow factor out of them. Given that they are mine, I'll see if
I keep them around or not. If I find I don’t use them, I'll sell them.
One of the guys brought over a pair of Meade 11x80's which we mounted on the
binocular mount. The wooden mount was $65 USD and was mounted to my Bogen
3031 tripod. It, unlike the other binoculars, worked very well. A bargain
for sure. The 11x80's were wonderful. They only had a 4.5 degree field of
view, some 20% less than the 5.7 degree field of view of the 12x60’s but if
you took into account that only 50% of the 12x60’s field of view was really
sharp, and the Meade’s field of view was sharp almost to the edge, the Meade
’s looked very good indeed. Looking through them made me realize its not me.
I can recognize decent binoculars when I see them. Or see through them!
Early on in the evening much of the area around M8 and M20, on up to M17
brimmed with stars, clusters, diffuse nebulae, and dark nebulae. I did not
take the time to identify everything I saw but certainly now see how a truly
good pair of binoculars on a stable mount with a comfy lounge chair and
atlas, could be a pleasant few hours unto itself. The double cluster in
Perseus was quite a sight in the 11x80s.
I tried splitting the close but even double Zeta Bootis at 252x as I had in
the past. And as in the past I could easily elongate the double to a near
figure eight shape but not quite resolve it. Once or twice I could have
sworn I saw two separate component’s pop into view at 371x, but I simply
could not hold it long enough to say I was positive. I then took up the AL
double star list in earnest for a time. Using Skymap Pro and the Quik Finder
to locate them, and the 7mm Pentax SMC orthoscopic in the 130EDT for 148x to
observe them, I logged: Zeta Corona Borealis, Xi Scorpii, Struve 1999, Beta
Scorpii, Beta Cephei, Xi Cephei, Delta Cephei, Struve 2816, 61 Cygni, and 31
Cygni. None of these are particularly hard to split in the 130EDT. In fact
most are wide open. But each has it’s own aesthetics and therefore is
interesting in it’s own right. I found the two triple systems Struve 2816
(STF 2816 in SkyMap) and 31 Cygni the most pleasing.
By the time I had finished having my fill of doubles I decided to munch on
my sub sandwich and then begin observing the moon. This bought about a
comical routine as I tried to hold a whole moon map up to figure out where
the terminator ran. I rotated this way and that to no avail. Hilarious as
the view through even the 11x80's had so much more, or less, contrast than
the map depending on where you were looking. In the end I did persevere but
only by placing an extension on the EDT’s focuser and viewing straight
through with a 32mm Sirius Plossl. I must have taken 30 minutes to to figure
out where to start! Once I figured out what map in the Hatfield atlas to
use, it took me another good long while to find something, anything, on the
sketched maps that I could positively identify in the eyepiece. Can you tell
I am a very inexperienced lunar observer!
With the help of one of the guys, I was able to finally get my bearings and
identify that the terminator lie along the northeast third of Mare
Serenitatis passing just east of the craters Dawes and Plinius and cutting
directly through the craters Cyrillus and Catharina. These latter two appear
attached by a sculpted narrow valley joining them. In their lunar twilight,
they appeared like a dark north south oriented barbell. Then there was a
fascinating series of rills or gullies (it's always hard for me to tell) in
Mare Tranquillitatis. These rills were complex and close together. But what
was most fascinating is it appears they had form after a crater which they
ran over. So there was a shallow ring shape that appear overlaid on top of
the rills.
All the time I was observing the moon the seeing was pretty good. Bright
stars like Vega that were directly overhead did not scintillate at all.
Indeed those 20 and 30 degrees from zenith like Altair, Deneb, and Enif were
rock steady. I was able to use powers between 200-400 diameters or 40 to 80
diameters per inch. That's Palomar skies for you! As my friend who was there
once wrote on the net, "there's a reason they put the big ones up there."
But that's also an AP telescope for you. It just keeps going anf going. I
was constantly swapping orthoscopics in and out of the telescope as well as
using the Astro-Physics Barlow. There again, Astro-Physics quality shines.
Using their Barlow in 1.7x mode, which means placing it between the star
diagonal and eyepiece caused no detectable degradation in the image or image
brightness. It made it easier to compare the 7mm Pentax orthoscopic to the
Takahashi 4mm and 2.8mm orthos as it's effective focal length became 4.1mm.
And as a 'control' I decide to also place the 4.8mm Nagler in the mix. As
far as I can tell, on the net the 4.8mm has the reputation as the least
desirable Nagler. I figure with all that glass it will not be as sharp or as
bright as the orthoscopics.
The only problem is, I kid you not, in my opinion, the 4.8mm Nagler and the
Astro-Physics Barlow used in it’s 1.7x mode gave the sharpest view, with the
most contrast. And had the add benefit of twice the field of view as the
orthoscopic eyepieces. This was completely unexpected and may prove to most
experienced amateurs my inexperience. Using the Nagler and the Barlow I was
able to easily pick up three and sometimes four craterlets in the center of
the crater Plato. I do not know how many I 'should' have seen. Who knows
maybe 10! However this eyepiece and Barlow combination also showed me
clearly a thin shallow V shaped area of brighter material in the crater just
to the south of the center of the crater. More clearly than any of the other
eyepieces or eyepeice barlow combinations. In fact I noticed it first using
the 4.8mm and the barlow. Any one else ever see this? Or was I seeing
things? In any case I am sure I'll be panned for the Nagler conclusion as it
goes against conventional wisdom. Hopefully I'll be shown the errors of my
ways at a star party and fall back in line.
I turned the 130EDT towards Saturn which had now risen high into the morning
sky. It was around 4:00 am PDT. Saturn displayed quite a wealth of
variations in the browns and dark cream colors of the polar regions. The
Crepe ring was very easy to pick out. It’s hard a dark dark brown or black
dusty quality to it. But I am not great at describing planetary details. Of
course Cassini's division was easy to see.
Which brings us to Jupiter. Jupiter seemed to me to be less detailed than
prior observations. Is Jupiter in a more quiescent phase? Or am I just bad
at picking out detail? If the latter we can forget my eyepiece evaluations!
The Spot Formerly Known as Red was making a transit or had just transited. I
patiently swapped eyepieces in and out. The 2.8mm Takahashi reminded my of
looking through a ground glass camera viewfinder. I never got really warm
and fuzzy with this eyepiece. The 4.8mm Nagler and 4mm Takahashi both showed
excellent detail with the area around the red spot showing the detail as the
clouds wrap around the swirling spot. They create a 'ring' of light material
around the spot itself. However the 4.8mm Nagler seem to barlow up better
than the 4mm Takahashi. The view stayed very sharp with excellent contrast.
The red spot seemed a darker salmon, almost a real ruddy or dark rust red.
The NTB thin as it is, was easier to see in the 4.8mm and the sculpting in
the SEB and NEB was easier to see. I saw none of the large streamers hanging
from the NEB or SEB (I forget which) I’d seen once before. No ovals either,
though I believe they are gone. Clearly the NEB and SEB have thinner and
thicker areas with sculpted out areas at their edges.
My conclusion is the 4.8mm Nagler gets a bad rap because the people who tend
to own Naglers tend to have dobs which virtually never reach their
diffraction limited capability due to thermal and atmospheric effects. It’s
generally too much power for a large dobsonian with a 1.5 or 2+ meter focal
length. Hence it gets a bad rap. And perhaps too many refractor weenies
think it has too many lens in it to have good light throughput or sharpness,
so they pan it. Or that’s my theory anyway. If I could keep only one, it'd
be the Nagler. If two, the Nagler and the 4mm Tak. If three I'd add the 7mm
Pentax barlowed to 4.1mm using the AP barlow. And one more conclusion, if
you want a superb barlow, don’t pass up the Astro-Physics convertible
barlow. It's like having an eyepiece (or telescope) of the resulting
effective focal length instead of an eyepiece and a barlow. That’s the best
praise one can give a barlow.
I packed up as the Sun rose. I had intended to sleep a few hours before
making the trip home but I found myself wide awake even after being up 18
hours. So I drove straight through on home. I made it home about 8am PDT and
kissed my still slumbering wife "goodnight" (morning?). I fell asleep almost
as my head hit the pillow. It had been a wonderful night on my own personal
highway to the stars. I was also glad to have the company of my friends
along the way. And the best thing is it's a never ending road.