Mini OR for Dino 2007/01/12

Hans Schulze

When we got to Dino around 7PM, we were surprised to find no one there, and a sky full of stars to look at, alongside a sliver of moon at around 60 degrees up from the southwest. We set up quickly, let the scope do it's robotic dance, and checked the conditions by grabbing a few shots of the moon.

Then we twirled over to the trapezium, and looked at it through 50mm and 31mm WFPC (j/c) on the LX200/305. Got those quite clear, but no 5th or 6th friend with the collimation that I had. Then Johnny pointed over to the moon, and it was starting to cloud over! Dang, we had better work fast to take a series before we lose this - maybe this is why no one was there!

About 5 short exposures later, the clouds had reached Orion, and covered most everything except Mars and a few others. But by the time we had pointed up at those, they had also drowned. Johnny turned on the car dome lights, and flipped through a Sky&Tele that I had just received, while I mounted a new 500mm lens on my DSLR. I took a few shots of the Dam, struggling with the excessive contrast ratios, and kicking myself for not having mail-ordered the 77mm filters that the store didn't have when I bought that new tube. Then I remembered the Orion city light filter I had just bought, and found the those lights to put out an eerie green. I snapped a few video-game-fake-night-vision-goggle looking shots. More on those after I pull them out of the camera tomorrow.

Enough of goofing around, looks like the sky won't recover, so we started slowly packing up, was around 9:45PM. Johnny, having been picked up far from his hotel during the day, didn't have his electronic key, and would have trouble if he got there after 11, as some gates would close. Oh well, so much for waiting for the clouds to rip.

As we started driving the downhill part of the Pacheco Pass highway, we saw a lot of yellow and red blinking lights, and hit the emergency lights, and good thing too because there was an eighteen wheeler a few hundred yards behind us, doing over 65mph. Right around the bend were at least 7 fire trucks, an ambulance, and a few police cars, and some light grey smoke coming from about 15y from the side of the road. Not wanting to change the lettering on my rear license plate to the reverse of Mack, we maintained our safe speed through the luminous cacophony.

About a mile further, as traffic was thin, I peered out my driver's side window, and found another sky full of stars, and cursed. Just as clear as before. If only we had a bit more time - the last time I said that it was 3 or 6 hours later :P

Back into the fringe of the city, the orange haze took over, and there was nothing left to see, even if I had put that city filter back on, I would probably have a hard time doing much useful - or at least that's what I am telling myself so I can get to bed and enjoy my pillow.