by Jamie Dillon
Saturday night the 26th, Derek, Peter N, Bob C and myself ventured down Hwy 25 from Hollister to Jefferson School, just south of the Pinnacles. This is in the valley that lies east of the Gabilans, next valley over from the Salinas. It's remote, with Basque sheepherders working the hills to the east of there, leading eventually to the San Joaquin.
Ranger Chad from Pinnacles National Monument set this all up. He turns out to be a very cool guy who works about 30% of his professional time pursuing dark sky issues across the US. Kathy Greene, teacher/principal/chief haranguer of Jefferson, hosted the binge. It's a K-8 school, and all 10 kids showed up. They fed us a nice dinner.
The sky cooperated marvelously. Some 10 miles north of the school there was high haze across the sky, and sure enough at Jefferson it was crystal clear. We had a 6.2 limiting magnitude sky with seeing 4/5, good.
Most interesting and fun was the role reversal. For us stargazing types, moonrise means packing-up time, right? Not for the kids. They were staying up specifically to see the Moon come up. Theophilus and Catullus and Caterina were right along the terminator, and the seeing was fine for getting oohs and aahs. Saturn got high enough for them all to catch a peek before rolling into their sleeping bags. It was a long awaited sleepover party for the whole crew of kids.
And of course we handed out a full range of objects, your colorful double stars, your galaxies, your PN's, OC's and GC's. It remains to be seen how Pinnacles shapes up as an observing location for those of us within easy reach, but this starparty couldn't have been more worth it. Everyone had a real big time.
Thanks again to Peter for spearheading this event.