Yesterday I drove from the east bay to the old gold town of Columbia, on
highway 49 - just north of Jamestown and Sonora. Columbia is a State
Historic Park and is beautifully preserved and rebuilt - with running
stagecoach, active gold mine and pedestrian main street full of interesting
shops, displays, restaurants and hotels, as well as a live theater. A
large chocolate Dreyers ice cream cone in hand with which to stroll the old
streets on a warm, lazy afternoon, provides a great prelude to a night of
observing at Michelle Stone's Plettstone Astronomy Preserve... its great to
have places to go in Gold Country, and Michelle's is simply, the best.
Michelle had told me some time ago about the road north of her property,
what happens to highway 49 between Mariposa and Sonora. Still, despite the
cautions, I could not believe beautiful, tranquil "Gold Country Road" ... a
place I'd spent many an afternoon casually driving and enjoying gently
curving ridge-hugging scenery, I thought "what the heck... I'll try
it".... and so, I descended through the bustling western authentic gold
town of Sonora, south toward Coulterville and Plettstone... near Yosemite.
The start of the drive was fine, some twisty-turns, familiar gold country
scenery... down into an alluvial canyon where a meandering stream kept
switching sides of the bed. Soon I came upon a turn, a fork in the
road. I stayed on 49, which bared to the right, away from 120 and the
north entrance to Yosemite. The place was called Moccasin, a small town,
somewhere, maybe in the hills behind the trees - all but invisible to the
casual passer-by. But what did grab my eye was the Water Works. There's
a small dam, holding back the stream from its northwestern flow. To its
east is a large brick building, facing the reservoir contained water... and
to its right are "the works".... machines that must puff out smoke and
clang loudly when the flow is at maximum. The mountain, and I mean it in
the literal sense, it is not a hill, it is massive, rises abruptly from the
riverbed, and on its flank coming out of the Works are four very large
pipes, running up the mountain to concrete bunkers spaced strategically
along their length. The only other place I've seen something close to this
type of engineering feat is near the Grapevine at the south end of the
Central Valley, where the California Aqueduct is ported up and over the
mountains leading to Los Angeles. It is impressive.
Equally impressive was the drive along and up Moccasin Creek. The turns
start immediately. The don't stop for perhaps 30 miles. The climb, twists
and turns, no wonder they named it Priest Grade! The climb is tremendous,
as are the views along the treed canyons leading out to the west. When I
told Michelle about the drive this morning, she began laughing. I talked
about getting to the top of the steep grade, up to where John Sutter had
built a fort to protect his gold claims, only to find several more
sequences of steep windy grades to follow. I haven't been on a drive like
that one in years.
I finally arrived at an area that began looking like the terrain around
Plettstone, when suddenly the sign appeared to Bear Valley Road, around the
corner from my destination. When I pulled in a few friends were already
there. It was going to be a short night, moonrise around 12:30 (cresting
the mountains), but it was great to be there. Into Mariposa for a quick
bite to eat at the Happy Burger (they recommend their ostrich burgers
"pink"), and back to the observing site.
All during the afternoon the skies looked hazy. Fires had apparently
broken out all along the Sierra foothills. I didn't think the transparency
would be very good... but I would be surprised! Richard Navarrete and I
teamed up to go over some of the Herschel 400, a project we'd both
completed, but we were "out of objects" (isn't that ridiculous!) for this
season, and just wanted to look at some objects that might be
interesting. We both had laptops set up running The Sky. Richard set up
his C11 and I the 18" Obsession. The first object was....
NGC 6826, the Blinking Planetary. I was looking at it from Chabot Friday
night - always fun to see the "fuzz" blink out and have that central star
show so well.
Next was NGC 6905 in Delphinus - The Blue Flash Nebula. I had trouble
finding this one and had to look through Richard's Telrad. It seemed
interesting - some internal structure. I began increasing the
magnification, and at 283X the planetary appeared elongated - football
shaped. If I recall correctly, there were brighter sections along the edge
of the disk, making it seem somewhat bipolar - kind of a
"proto-peanut-planetary", and I felt there was some dark area in around the
central star - perhaps forming a ring (didn't take notes).
Two good planetaries... I suggested we drop the 400 and do some
planetaries. The seeing was pretty good, and objects did not seem
diminished by the smoke (maybe it had cleared).
We went to NGC 40 in Cepheus. It held high power, even disk, but again,
some brightening along opposite edges.
Next to NGC 7008 in Cygnus - kind of comma shape. At 283X the view was
great, with a 1-1/4" DGM Optics VHT filter. All kinds of bright knots -
this planetary has a lot going on! The night was turning into something
quiet good. We kept going...
On to Open NGC 6905 in Delphinus, then a visit to Cepheus - NGC 6369, a
nice open cluster paired in a wide field eyepiece with NGC 6946 - a good
face on spiral galaxy. In a finder they both look like galaxies.
Looking up again at Cygnus I moved to the Crescent - NGC 6866 - somewhat
washed out - maybe the smoke was a problem after all. Also, had a heck of
a time finding it - odd - usually it stands out well enough without a
filter, but this night it was so *barely* there that I passed over it
several times, as did Richard, both of us saying "where is it?" But as
soon as I put the OIII filter on - definitely there. Nice, but not great view.
The most spectacular view of the night - hands down- was the Veil
Nebula. The Waterfall, NGC 6992, showed more detail, or as much - no -
more detail than at Shingletown this year - where I was just floored by the
intricacy of the filaments. This night, was amazing. The bottom of the
Waterfall curved back under the arc - Rashad saw it, Richard saw it, but in
the Digital Sky Survey I can't see it. Amazing. Other sections that had
previously been "suspected" were obvious - the entire center section, the
gorgeous extension off the thin end of the Witch's Broom. What a night.
From off to my right came the invitation "have a look at the North
American" - and over I went to a 17.5" Earlatron. The NA was magnificent -
thick - white icing on devil's food kind of appearance. Slathered
on. Across from the NA the Pelican Nebula was easy to make out - no
doubt. Amazing! The contrast between the thick sections of nebulosity and
the pitch black dark areas was stunning.
Michelle has the place!
After a beverage break, Richard and I poked around NGC 6866, a nice open
cluster in Cygnus, then up into Cassiopeia, where I began with the
diminutive cluster NGC 654, which led me to NGC to its big splashy neighbor
NGC 663, again on to little NGC 669 and finally, hoping over to M103. Any
of these three non-M clusters could take the place of M103 in Charlie's
catalog.
Being so close, I also jumped over to the ET cluster, NGC 457 and its dim
neighbor at the alien's feet, NGC NGC 436.
It was getting late now, by the "moon clock" - The Great Plaster Ball was
beginning to show some brightening over the eastern hills. Michelle called
a few of us over to look through the outstanding 15" Plettstone scope she
has for her personal use. She was proclaiming that this was the best view
of M57 she'd ever had. I thought "ho-hum... another M57" and began to call
out "last call for M57"... and then I looked...
The Ring was green, at least to me. I think my color perception is quite
acute. There was a green hue in the grey. The object was magnified over
300X and... all of a sudden, a pinpoint in the center, then gone. Then it
was back, gone, back... soon I was pretty much holding the central star
with averted vision. The only other times I've seen it are through the 40"
Nickel at Mount Hamilton, and the 30" Starmaster Jim Ster hauled up to the
Oregon Star Party last year.
Yes, Michelle, it was the best view I've ever had. Quite a telescope you
made - competing with a 30 and a 40. You win! :-)
Thanks, Michelle, for such a fun night. As usual, it is hard to
leave. The beautiful environs of Mariposa make you want to stay, and if
you can't, certainly you want to come back.
Best of luck, Michelle, at Oregon Star Party this year... I'll be back up
at Plettstone next month.
The drive home was quick... traffic on 580 westbound to 680 was a bear,
even on a Sunday at noon. Amazing. I'd rather leave civilization
behind. Even if the alternative were Mocassin Creek.
Clear skies,
Mark
Received on Sun Aug 8 21:48:44 2004