Michael Huster
Last Saturday was my annual trek to Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic National Park with my astronomy class. Thursday and Friday were very iffy in Redding with lots of cloud cover. At times I could only see the base of Lassen. Like the Weather Service forecast, it started to clear in the morning. The inversion layer with scattered clouds was several thousand feet above Lassen's peak, but I set out with 8 students and a friend at 1:00 PM and arrived at Bumpass Hell around 2:30. We all enjoyed a beautiful hike to the mudpots and back, ate cold dinners and started the Ibarra hot chocolate (made with whole milk and a pinch of chili powder) near sunset.About 30 minutes before sunset the western half of the sky was solid clouds and about 20% of the rest of the sky. Almost miraculously, the whole sky was clear by sunset! The school has a Meade 8" LX-200 (very old school with 18V power) and an 8" LX-90. I set them up ready for alignment.
In the gloaming we were able to track Jupiter. Venus was barely visible, and Mercury was below the horizon. (Brokeoff Mountain raises the western horizon by about 5 degrees.) By then it was getting cold and the hot chocolate was ready. By this time about 15 additional students an friends had arrived for the show.
As it got darker I worked the students through some double stars, Albireo & Alpha Herc. It turned into a gloriously dark Bumpass night. For the first time I had a dew problem at Bumpass. Probably because the inversion layer was above us, there was more humidity than usual. Actually it was a nice meteorological lesson because earlier in the day you could see the clouds settle against the ceiling. This caused more of a light dome from Chico than usual, but the sky was absolutely black to the horizon from NNE to SE.
By about 8:20 it was dark enough to turn the scopes on globulars. M13 was spectacular against a very dark sky. M4 was in the Chico glow, though. At 8:24 we stopped and were treated to a mag -8 Iridium flare and two minutes later an ISS pass from SW to NE. We followed the ISS across the whole sky!
Later we saw some of the nebula, Eagle, Swan, Trifid, and open clusters, Wild Duck, etc., and finished with galaxies M31, 32, 33 & 51. M33 was easy to pick out against the dark NE sky. About 9:45 most of the students were freezing and some running laps around the parking lot. I said, "Would anyone want to lay out blankets and just watch the Milky Way for another hour?" Out of the darkness a voice said incredulously, "On the cold asphalt?"
We packed up and were rolling by 10:15, and arrived back on campus by midnight. It was a great night observing!
Michael Huster, Ph. D.
Associate Professor of Science
Simpson University
2211 College View Dr.
Redding, CA 96003
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