by Michael Peck
Well, with so many star party type activities going on here in the bay area and the spectre of poor skies, my wife and I decided to try to find Lake San Antonio.
So, I printed out Jim Bartolini's PDF of directions, and called the rangers as instructed. The ranger I spoke with said it was crystal clear, so I started packing. We finally headed out around 7pm, from Fremont.
As we went, I made notes on the document as I was discovering some discrepancies, and suggested additional text.
First, at the top of hte first page it says exit County Road J14. It's actually G14. The text also says it's about 100 miles from 101&280.
Suggest adding text mentioning that Soledad is 90 miles, and the exit you want (Jolon Rd) is 10 miles past Greenfield. It's also labelled for the Army's Fort Hunter Ligget. (It was kinda neat driving past a bunch of parked APCs and tanks;)
Top of page 2 again mentions J14, which should be G14. It also says to contine for 12 miles, which should say 14 miles. The warning that is the second paragraph mentions J18, which should actually say G18.
The last two points would be to add the URL and phone number for the rangers. 831-385-8322 (as of 9/15/2002) and http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/parks/park_004.htm.
I can probably do this (I'm not sure I still have access to Acrobat) if nobody else can.
So, leaving Fremont at 7pm got me there at about 10:10 with one short stop. (5 year olds can only last so long;) One thing I'm curious about: TACos are so fond of Mt. Lassen, however this place is nearly 2 hours closer. Is Mt. Lassen that much better? I haven't made it there yet, but might in a few weeks.
Got setup, and waited to see if the whispy clouds were going to clear up. Got in some nice bino views of things, M57, Andromeda, some doubles here and there.
This was the first attempted dark-sky viewing using my new 35mm Parks eyepiece. I visited Scope City a couple of weeks ago, looking for some low-power eyepiece, after Peter Natscher was "schooling" me at FP a few weeks ago. It was going to be either a lower-power ep (than the 25 I had) or a RA finder (the 6x30 on my C8 is no fun). The didn't have any magnified finders in stock, although I think I like the sound of the Parks. RA, 8x50, illuminated with polar-alignment markings. Next time I have a couple hundred bucks sitting around;)
So, one thing I did do at LSA, was to try to compare the actual FOV of the new EP. The 25mm I have (Celestron SMA, came with the scope) has .5 degrees, since most times I've viewed the moon, it just barely fit in the FOV. Last night, I put the 35mm in, looked at the moon, and it was nearly 2/3 of the FOV. Ok, so FOV is around .65 degrees. Great. I decided on a whim to double check the 25mm, and WHAT the HEY! The moon was only about 80% of the FOV!
So, driving back (before the big adventure) I spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. All I can come up with, is that when I figured out that the moon was full FOV in the 25mm, it must have been when the moon was closest to earth, and right now, it's somewhere near the farthest away. (I am now forgetting which is perihelion.) Is this correct? So, what I'm deciding, is that the 35mm is only getting about .55 degrees, assuming that the 25mm is actually at .5 degrees. Ugh. I see observing reports from people describing things as being 10' S-SW of something, and this real FOV is the only way I can think of to estimate what 10' would be. Am I correct on how important this data is?
As for the "Big Adventure" I mentioned above, as I was heading back up 101, shortly before the 156 split to San Juan Batista, I saw a fire on the other shoulder. I pulled over and started to get my phone out, when I saw a person climb out of the drivers door and head around the car. I woke my wife, tossed her the phone and headed over the freeway. The passenger was pinned under the dashboard as the flames were getting to his feet. It turned out his legs were broken badly and sideways. I worked on it with a few other people, even as the Sheriff's and Fire Dept. people started showing up. I'm shaking again just thinking about it. I'm very glad the fire truck go there, because I had earlier been certain he was not going to make it. It was very hard keeping smoke-free air going near his head, while trying to lift the tree off the car. I was still down there helping when the jaws tool pried the door out of the way, and then started lifting the dash, and saw his legs heading off in the wrong direction. Those car fires are really nasty, kept flaming up. The guy was coming and going in and out of consciousness. He'd start screaming in Spanish, and then flame would be visible again. Very hard to deal with. I'm glad it's over. When I finally left, they still hadn't gotten the guy out, but there were three fire truck crews working on it. The smoke had stopped, so I think actually got it all cooled down so there'd be no more flare-ups. I hope nobody else ever has to go through that, it was NOT fun. Maybe I'll be able to get some sleep tonight.
I'm glad everyone had a great time at MB & Palo Alto. I kinda wish I'd gone to one of them. Since the guys wasn't out of the car when I left, I'm not sure I did much good, other than for his brother who was trying frantically to get him out.