July 24/25, 2009: Two Good Nights at Peddler Hill

Shneor Sherman

It's probably been more than ten years since my observing buddy Gregg and I have observed at Peddler Hill; I wonder why it took so long, after two good nights at that 7,160 foot elevation. We spent Friday and Saturday nights there on the 24th and 25th of July. Gregg has a 25" and I have a 22". While the western sky is lost up to 50-60 degrees, the rest of the sky is excellent, and the horizons are pretty good. Mount Leviathan (next to Monitor Pass) blocks out the light pollution from South Lake Tahoe very well, and the eastern and southern skies are superb. It's a bit less than a 2-hour drive from Davis.

We began observing on Friday well before moonset, and after a nearby RV turned off their outside lights. I have an excellent view of N7008 and later on, the Pegasus I cluster; also observed a transit of (I believe) Io across the face of Jupiter. I did not make a list, but observed many objects until about 2:30 a.m.

On Saturday, we were joined by half a dozen members of the Stockton club. They had mostly smaller telescopes, so I hauled out my binoviewer with a pair of 24 Pans and showed off the Moon, M57, M8, M17 and a few other objects. M8 in particular is a reason to use a binoviewer, as it appears spectacularly 3-dimensional. Then a few clouds moved in and for the next hour and a half or so, some parts of the sky were ususable. Nonetheless, I had fine views of the N7331 group, as well as Stephan's Quintet, and the galaxy group opposite Stephans, and later on many galaxies in the Perseus Cluster. But my highlight of the night was catching the International Space Station for about half a minute at 80x. It appeared as three side-by-side elongated ovals, very bright and moving very fast (almost certainly the solar panels). I also got a glimpse of the new smudge right next to Jupiter's South Pole. .

This is truly a fine observing location, probably one of the best remaining in Northern California. We may well return there next month.

Clear skies,
Shneor Sherman