Greg LaFlamme
Mark Johnston and I arrived at Mount Lassen on July 18th and stayed through the 21st. Four nights at Bumpass Hell. The first night, Mark and I joined up with Peter Natscher and Dave Cooper. I was armed with my 22" f/3.6 home brew, Mark had his tried and true 18" f/3.7 Starmaster, Dave with his ultra-sweet AP 155 and Peter with his amazing 24" f/3.7 Starmaster. A great group of animalistic deep-sky observers in a location that is much better observed from than described. Privileged with fine equipment, we used that sky to its fullest! Sunday night we were joined by our buddies Scott Baker and Carter Scholz. Scott gave first light to his new 18 Obsession UC (an outstanding scope) and Carter had his 12.5" f/5 home brew ultra-light super-compact. It felt very much like a mini-Lassen GSSP. My new ramps made unloading and loading my scope a pleasure. I could pull into the lot, slide in the handles, roll out the scope and be completely setup in 10 minutes flat. After the first two nights, we discovered that bringing our chase lounges to the observing site and just resting as the sky darkened went a long way towards having a long and successful observing session.
We went after everything high and low. The Milky Way was brighter than I ever remember seeing it and the dark horse was boldly superimposed over a giant, well defined galactic bulge. Really sick! Surrounded by chirping toads and cool mountain air, its a beautiful experience. Dave gave me my first view of Nu Sco and Antares little sibling in-tow. The splits and star colors were amazing. Peter showed me the Bug nebula. Not only was is bright but it had a distinctive bow-tie figure as seen in astrophotos. After that, it no longer reminds me of a tadpole. After working about 45 MCG's, UGC's and CGCG's, Peter wandered over and asked "have you looked at the Dumbbell yet?" I said, why no. Smack! What a view! Incredible without a filter. With the addition of an OIII, a tattered haze spilled out from each end of the bright nebula, making it appear even larger. After that I was on an eye candy binge, I looked at Jones's 1, The Crescent, the Cocoon. The Veil nebula: Whoa, stop the bus here! holycrap @ stopmyheart . wow!! Nuf sed there... The Saturn Nebula was sharp. bright and spooky neon green. Inside the disc was a white oval ring and a bright central star. Each end of the razor thin rays were punctuated by bright ansae that appeared to be curved inward toward the freaky planetary, sorta like this (---O--- ) Hey, there's a sketch for ya;-)
I installed my 26 Nagler and went after the snake nebula. While still on Urano Metria, appendix 17, I went after all those little Barnards nearby. I've looked at them before but only in passing. It was time to actually log them. M 81 was all wrapped around itself, M 51 was dizzying, M 101 was naughty, 6946 was incredible! I changed magnification on each one, just to see how deep my 22" primary could take me. I went far. We were all sharing views and having a great time. I was in bed each morning between 4 and 4:30 .
Some other notable moments:
Just before we packed up for the last time, Carter showed us a shadow transit on Jupiter and we were also able to see Ganymede crossing in front of Jupiter's colorful and detailed disc. A fantastic image! Thanks to the whole gang, you guys made that trip so fun!
Here is a link to some photos from the trip: http://www.fototime.com/inv/C61BCA149BD1BF3
GML
| Observing Reports | Observing Sites | GSSP
2010, July 10 - 14 Frosty Acres Ranch Adin, CA OMG! Its full of stars. Golden State Star Party |
|
Mailing List Archives |
Current Observing Intents Click here for more details. |
||||
|
|