After about a 2.5 hour drive from the bay area, I
was greeted by a quite desolate, dry, and dusty,
south overflow camping area. The dust was
quite abundant, though only noticable when
vehicles were moving. There were 5 of us there,
in three vehicles.
The rangers came by around sunset to do one pass, and
said they would not patrol the lot that night. They
did ask if we had cell phones, and told us to call
them should we encounter problems from "others".
As it turned out, there were no intrusions, not even
from non-human wildlife.
I setup the FSQ/G11 for some film work, and also
the 15" dob for visual use while waiting for the long
exposures.
Once darkness came, we were greated by that not-familiar-enough
"sugary" milky way. The temperature was still balmy, though
by 11pm I found shorts a bit cool and added ski bibs.
The wind was non-existent, and dew was minimal,
only affecting (as usual) the black observers chair seat.
The sky was good.. I've seen LSA better -- transaparancy was
nearly tops; the seeing was just a tad bit on the soft side.
I did not do much seeing evaluation, but stuff down low
(e.g. m51) was somewhat soft.. however above
30 degrees or so seemed quite good.
We looked at some brighter stuff, e.g. m17 with the oIII
and it looked as good as I've ever seen. I spent a fair
amount of the early morning hours poking around in draco,
as that constellation does not fair well here in the south
bay with light pollution to the north. Its a good thing
I brought the 15.. it can get quite boring waiting for
those long film exposure!
Around 4am with the pleides quite high in the east,
I nodded off... and awoke to a brightening sky at about 5am,
with Orion cresting the eastern horizon.
I stowed some gear, and climbed into the truck for some shuteye.
Around 8am I awoke to a pleasent low cloud cover, blocking
out the ever intense LSA sunshine. By 9am the low clouds
had dispersed, and I was packed and on the road.
At $22/night, LSA is a bit steep, but possibly worth it
(and the 5-6 hour roundtrip drive).
jeff
Received on Sun Aug 15 21:36:02 2004