Dinosaur Point 3 December

by Jamie Dillon

From Salinas, the drive to Pacheco State Park is a cinch. 101 thru Prunedale, over the hill to the cutoff to San Juan Bautista, on 156 past SJB then around Hollister, thru pretty fields and pastures with the hills looming up. Onto 156, past Casa de Fruta, site of Casa de Coffee place of excellent pies. Up thru Pacheco Pass, past that jagged hill I've always called Hawk Crag (locals call it Lover's Leap). Right at the summit you better pay attention to the sign for Pacheco State Park because the turn is right there, within a few meters.

Going thru the gate down to Dinosaur Point for the first time since 9 February '02, I caught up with Albert, Joe Bob and Guillermo. There were two Albert Highe scopes in a row. Jardine has Albert's 17.5 with which Highe did up the Birthday Cluster, and Albert hissef has a new 16 with elegant design. Cover your ears, children, it also has go-to and tracking. This was good company all around.

As noted earlier, transparency was good. I counted 15 stars in the Perseus Finnish triangle, for 6.2 limiting magnitude. Seeing was 3/5, moderate, with wind going overhead. The 4 of us know each other way too well, and the conversation was candid, picking up all sorts of ongoing threads. The park is pretty as ever, right on San Luis Reservoir. As also noted, the dam lights are there, and it's best to set up gear with a vehicle in the way of the lights.

I started out on purpose with NGC 1360, which I'd 'discovered' on my last trip to Dino. Amid these scads of galaxies in Eridanus, it looks like a long pennant in a strong wind. Turns out to be a planetary with a bright central star. Interesting object. Also sat and stared at M15 as a reward for the globular project. Then the rest of the night I was working page 10 in SkyAtlas, in Cetus moving up to Pisces. 1073 is interesting. Diffuse and dim, but big, 4-5' across. Face-on. Swirls showed up after some study. It's 54 mly away in the M77 group.

M77 is always worth the trip. Certainly a Seyfert galaxy, knockout bright huge core. On the way met up with 1032, a lovely little sharp-ended lens with a bright core, couched in a right triangle of bright stars. Worth checking out.

We swapped lots of views. Albert's Birthday Cluster (yes, Sean, Abell 426, the Perseus Cluster) in his 16 was dazzling. Later got Joe Bob to run down NGC 1999 in the 17.5. South of M42, it's had plenty of discussion on TAC, interesting object, combination emission and reflection nebula, with dramatic dark lanes. Yes we gawked at M42 in that magnificent scope. And oh yeah, speaking of swapping views, Guillermo confirmed a Zwicky galaxy I'd found. II Zwicky 5, exotic, huh? It's charted on SkyAtlas in Cetus, tantamount to a dare. A little star blinking in and out (the core), looking fuzzy. Halo showed up 30% of the time in averted vision. My very first Zwicky, certainly.

Saw Sabaeus, Meridiani, Erythraeum and Acidalium on Mars by dint of sitting down for a while with it. Seeing to the West was choppy. At the same time, though, Saturn was out over the lake in more steady seeing. Saw 5 moons. Before packing up, caught a DeepMap OC, 2129, tight and pretty, just west of M35. Then the Owl and M108 for the first time in a while, for dessert. A very satisfying night.

Albert gets tons of credit for a) negotiating Dino in the very first place, years ago, b) selling us on checking it out, when the older astro site Whiskey Flat is right up top there, c) patiently working with the rangers since 2002 to get access for astro groups again, and d) getting the folks on the dam to really turn down and shield the dam(n) lights. Dinosaur Point is back.

Thanks for being there, TACos.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Dec 08, 2005 22:52:19 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 16, 2006 22:38:36 PT