| Date | Saturday night May 19th, 2001 |
|---|---|
| Observer | Brad Franzella and several of the North Valley Astronomers (Chico) |
| Location | Devastated Area, Lassen Volcanic National Park (~6200 feet) |
| Transparency | 9/10 |
| Seeing | 6/10 |
Two of us carpooled in my truck from Chico to Bumpass hell, we arrived to a very windy welcome at 7:10pm. We immediately decided to relocate to Devastated Area due to the untenable winds. The raging winds at Bumpass were reduced to a light breeze at Devastated for the cost of two thousand feet and loss of horizon. Three more astronomers arrived for the barbeque; we had hamburgers and chicken with brownies for desert.
I setup the 10" Dob and collimated. Three more members arrived just after dark (making eight total) and set up their 9.25" SCT, 70mm binoculars, 8" SCT and 80mm refractor. We had about 6th magnitude skies at 10pm just after astronomical twilight. Unfortunately, the high winds overhead produced a great deal of turbulence, which led to terrible seeing. Around 1am the skies got darker, but the seeing only settled a bit, still only as good as a mediocre night down in the valley for planetary viewing. I would estimate nearly 6.5 magnitudes at 1pm with a gorgeous milky way visible from Sagittarius all the way across Cassiopeia!
First up were the bright objects. We looked at M51, noting some spiral structure and a definite core. Then I showed the crew a very nice and pleasing view of M81/82. The dark skies provided very good views of these objects, though the seeing prevented field stars from coming to a pinpoint focus. We next looked at M97, the owl nebula.
M13 in Hercules was stunning; at medium power its core was almost 3d, a real treat for the first time dark sky visitors. Glenn Talbert pointed out that NGC 6207, a 12.5 mag galaxy, was easily visible only one-quarter degree to the North East. Surely enough it was plain as day in the 10"
As the evening progressed we watched the summer triangle come into view and began to partake in its delights. Ray Rochelle's 80mm binoculars on a camera tripod were wonderful for clusters and a real treat on the Milky Way. I trained the 10" on M57, the Ring Nebula, which treated us with its usual ghostly form. Those new to dark skies were too transfixed by the shear number of stars visible to the unaided human eye to be easily impressed by the familiar ring.
The Veil nebula however caused quite a stir. I caught it with the OIII filter just as it crested the trees. The huge arcs of white nebulosity from this supernova remnant thrilled everyone. We immediately began trading around the various filters and eyepieces to compare views. The OIII filter is definitely king with the Veil nebula. We examined both arcs with and without filters for comparison.
I conveniently (!?!) forgot my Herschel list, so I continued showing show piece objects. The dumbbell, M27, was just as delightful as always. The dark skies afforded a brilliant view of its structure. To me this always looks like a cell in anaphase of mitosis <grin>. An unusually good view considering how bad Mars looked under the same seeing conditions. The OIII revealed more structure and fainter regions, the UltraBlock from Orion also performed well, though I personally prefer the unfiltered view of M27.
Three people had to leave around 1am, so I trained the scope on M17, the swan nebula to give them a parting sight of my favorite summer target. Without the OIII the swan looks like a wonderful pattern of nebulosity, but with the filter its "swan" shape is quite apparent. I also gave them glimpses of the lagoon and trifid nebulas before leaving. The parting vehicle lights caught one photographer unawares, but the hat trick seems to have saved the day. The temperature dropped to 31 degrees and 80 percent humidity; my new digital thermometer/barometer is rather fun to use.
We went on to examine more targets in Cygnus. The North American nebula and Pelican nebula showed up rather well. Again the swapping of filters commenced. Ray Rochelle, Glen Talbert and myself became engrossed in a quest to find the Cocoon nebula IC5416. I sat about the task by star hopping from M39. I swear I found the right field stars, but no nebula. In Ray's 70mm binoculars there is a wonderful dark nebula easily seen just between M39 and where the Cocoon should be. The cocoon is supposedly a 10th mag diffuse nebula, but I'm not seeing it (or possibly not looking in the right place). Ok, I'll try again next time.
We enjoyed clear skies with many gorgeous meteors streaking overhead. We were able to track one VERY bright (mag -1 perhaps) satellite with two different telescopes. I could easily discern two appendages from opposite sides of the craft as it passed out of view in the North East giving it the cursory appearance of Saturn at 44x magnification. We debated weather or not it was the ISS, but I don't believe it had the right shape.
The evening was wonderfully concluded with awesome views of M31 through my scope and Ray's binoculars. We started packing up and left around 5am. As we drove back through the park, we stopped and got out of the car to watch Venus set to a backdrop of pre-dawn twilight; a gorgeous end to a gorgeous night of observing. We took one last stop while passing Bumpass hell, only to find it extremely windy and much colder. Moving to Devastated was the right move, we would have been miserable all night at Bumpass.