Yuba River

by Jamie Dillon


Sunday I went back to the south fork of the Yuba for the first time in something like 15 years. Certainly won't be that long away again. My number one favorite place to go backpacking so far.

This trip was to meet some online friends and pick up a box of books. They live on the BLM land, a short distance from the river. The skies there are always memorable, so Felix came along.

(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with optics made by Discovery Telescopes. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians.)

The sky at night was crowded with stars, well past 6.5 limiting magnitude. One of my hosts had had a 4.5 inch reflector once upon a time, and was thinking of astronomy for a career till college physics came along. So there were informed requests, as well as knowledgeable and fascinated folks to show stuff to.

We saw galaxies, planetaries, open and globular clusters, a double and a quadruple star. You might just guess which ones we saw. Robyn and Janaia had just been backpacking to a ridge some 70 miles from there, and said the skies were twice as good. Yes I'll get directions.

Real fun trip, plus I got to go swimming in the river, yessirree.
Cheers,
Friend Jamie


Posted on tac-sac Aug 11, 2005 01:25:15 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 07, 2006 19:16:54 PT