First OR 6/30 & 7/2 in the Sierras

by Jay Critchfield

6/30/06 - Packer Saddle

I want to thank Ray Cash for tipping us off to this location. We spend the 4th of July week in the sierras but we had never been to this particular location which happens to be a half hour from where we stay. This was our first trip to dark skies with the new C8-asgt

We set up at the trailhead to the Sierra Buttes lookout along the Pacific Crest Trail. During the day this is a staging area for hikers and mountain bikers. We had the area to ourselves that night. Elevation is about 7000'. The trailhead in on top of a ridge with the only higher elevation being Sierra Buttes to the south. Only a few trees were a problem to the northeast and to the south, otherwise the views were spectacular. I was surprised to see a light dome from Reno to the east and one to the south-southwest which I'm Guessing is Lake Tahoe or Truckee.

We arrived before dusk and were treated to a beautiful sunset. The weather was perfect, high 80s during the day cooling to the high 40s at night. I'm not experienced enough, nor do I know how to tell you how good the seeing was other than after the moon went down the Milky Way was absolutely stunning to look at.

Items we observed starting about 10:00pm

m64, m91, ngc4565 nice very bright side on galaxy, m51 FINALY got to see some structure for the first time- yeah baby, very nice, m94, m3, m5, m16, ngc5981, ngc5982, ngc5985,ngc6207, m13, m92, m57 another one I've been waiting to get a better look at, did great at 156x, tried pushing it to 253x but it began to wash out.

About 10:45 two of our friends showed up to sneak some views. With one of them was his brother in-law who happened to have some astro observing experience. I backed up and showed them ngc4565, m51, m13 and m57.

My 11 year old son had already given up and curled up in the back of the truck. My 8year old daughter had hung tight up until now oohing and awing at the sights but the night finally won and she went off to join her brother in the truck.

Next we looked at m10, m12, ngc6633, m4, m6 and m7

From there we tried to see some of the nebula in Cygnus; ngc6888, ngc6960, ngc7000 and ngc7008. No joy on these. I'm not sure if a filter would have helped but we could not see anything so we gave up on the Cygnus nebula. Off to Sagittarius.

m20, m21, m23, m24, m25, ngc6520 and m8 I like this one. It showed up well with good definition of the dark cloud.

Our visitors headed out so we finished up about 1:30 am with m31, m27, m44 and ngc0206.

It was a great night of observing.

7/2/06- Homemade star party in Geaeagle, CA

Several of our holiday companions expressed some interest in having a look at the night sky so we decided to set up in a nearby meadow. There are houses on two sides and an offending street light near the highway but by 10:30 all but the street light were out. The surrounding trees kept the horizon at about 25-30 deg. (guess) There were nine kids including my two ranging in age from 2 to 11years and 9 adults.

First up was Jupiter at 92x. It's amazing how bright Jupiter is. One of the little ones thought she was looking at our moon. It was great to see the kids (and some adults) jockeying for position to get a look. Of course we got all kinds of questions neither of us could answer, maybe next time.

Next we looked at the moon. I started at 64x to get all of the visible moon in the field of view. After everyone had a look I changed to 156x to show some more detail. Everyone was impressed with how much detail they could see. One of the fathers managed to get a great afocal shot with his digital camera. He was very pleased with himself.

From there we showed then m51, m13, m57, m81, m82 and m4. This was about all the little ones could take and the crowd thinned down to just four of us.

I revisited ngc4565 but tonight it wasn't as bright. Sagittarius was just coming up over the trees so we took a shot at m20. I commented at the prominent dark clouds and our experienced observer who was still with us said there shouldn't be any. Hmmmm...it was then I realized we were looking through the top of the trees. I dubbed it the great pine nebula.

We finished the night with Alberio and the Double Double

Jay & Jane Critchfield