First time at Lake Sonoma.

Greg LaFlamme

I finally tried out the "Lone rock" parking lot up at Lake Sonoma last night. Carter Scholz and I met up there around dinner time and got set up for a night of cosmic wonderment. Had a great time too, turns out its a nice spot just as I suspected. Carter and I teamed up locating the WLM ( PCG 143) and in my 15" it barely showed as a diffuse brightening @150X. Thank goodness for DSS images! I plowed though a list of open clusters that I had been avoiding for awhile but treated myself to eye-candy along the way, The comet, M42, Horse head, running man, R Leporis. You know, getting re-reacquainted with Orion. I learned a few star hopping techniques from Carter and am almost ready to show up at the next star party without circles or drives,,,,I feel so alive;-) It was 93 miles from Alameda and the sky was very nice for the most part. I took SQM readings throughout the night and got a constant 21.08 so its pretty dark, seeing was 3.5 to 4 at times. Around 02:00, when the moon came up, I unrolled the thermarest and sleeping bag and made my truck bed a home. Great night! Now I need to get ready for tonight's new site, Dinosaur point. It looks like its a weekend of discovery for me:-)

GML

Observing Reports Observing Sites GSSP 2010, July 10 - 14
Frosty Acres Ranch
Adin, CA

OMG! Its full of stars.
Golden State Star Party
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