by Mark Wagner
I took Friday off and drove to Shingletown, site of our July star party. Saturday morning, after a great breakfast at the Shingle Shack, I attended a meeting with the Shingletown Activities Committee to discuss the status of the star party, and to help make arrangements. I am happy to report that we are going to have a GREAT time, no question about it. The community is very interested in the success of our event. I'll report more later, but I will offer that a smaller star party will happen there (at the airport) at the beginning of June. A limited number of attendees are encouraged to join us, I think it would be good to get some imagers to go so we understand any needs they'll have that have not be thought of.
Saturday I went to Lassen Park. It is amazing under snow. Manzanita Lake was 80% ice covered. Cross country skiers were the only traffic on Hwy 89 south of Devastated Area. I'll try to post some digital images later tonight or tomorrow.
After dinner we drove to the airport and set up. I have my 8" Skelescope. We had some dew and cold temps, getting down to 38 degrees. But, the view east of the airport at sunset of Lassen Peak, Mount Brokeoff, The Crags and all the other remnants of Mt. Tehama glistening in the distance as light faded was, well, breathtaking.
This is a beautiful location.
Once it was dark I began working my Herschel 400-II list. It was more challenging than with the 18", for sure, but still, objects were found with little difficulty. The seeing was a bit soft, but still, we had what looked like an excellent night. I guess I got lucky this weekend.
At one point, when Bootes was high enough, we did a star count. I got between 53 and 56. That, according to the chart at http://www.seds.org/billa/lm/rjm11.html gave us a sky at or better than mag 7.0.
Not bad, eh? And, it was not even what we considered a "best" night.
At dark, the Zodiacal Light reached from the horizon to near zenith, into Leo.
For now, what you should know is, this is a primo observing site, with tons of room
I'll try to write more later.