The perfect antidote from the realities of life...a dark sky getaway!

Ah Mount Pinos what would I do without thee. In my times of strife and stress you are there, like a dark beacon lighting my way in the darkness. I have been feeling like that since the marine layer came to permanently live over my skies. It has been starless for a couple of weeks now. It is infurating because the days are nice with gloriously blue skies. But as soon as the sun starts to set, the marine layer moves in from the coast, and by the time it gets dark, which is closer to 9pm now due to summer, the skies are totally clouded over (or fogged over whichever way you want to see it). Like the year before, our usual dark sky site in Solstice Canyon in Malibu is a no go since its affected by the marine layer even more than the skies over Culver City! So my only option is to drive further and get away from the coast. Good thing we SoCal residents have Mount Pinos accessible to us. Its is ideal for visual astronomy as the skies there are truly pitch black. It is actually better in summer as the marine layer shrouds the LA basin, trapping the light pollution under its foggy dome. So yes in summer when it is new moon weekend, Mount Pinos comes to mind. And come to mind it did!

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici

Now I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing at Mount Pinos. I have imaging on my mind pretty much all of the time these days and feel empty if I do not get a single new object to image. This time was no different, but I opted to keep my options open, as two trips prior to this saw cold gusty breezes (i.e. impossible to image with my small GOTO scope!). The weather has been very warm of late though, and Dave, my other observing friend had visited Pinos the Tuesday before I went. He experienced calmer night skies so I was hopeful I would get some imaging time. This proved to be partially true when I finally decided to bite the bullet and head there. The skies were clear, with some wispy clouds to the south east. These were threatening to enshroud my targets in the then rising Sagittarius. Good thing they kept at bay.  I knew from the start that this was going to be a great night seeing that there was only slight gust of wind, and warm wind at that. There has been only one other occasion when it has been this ideal. Pinos is usually cold :(

 M64: The Blackeye Galaxy in Coma Berenices

Started off the night doing the usual stuff such as aligning the GOTO mount. I had with me the Celestron Travelscope 70 on my Orion HDF2 photo tripod. This little OTA is proving to be one solid little wide field performer. Such scopes do best under pitch black skies as they can be used to their fullest. Under urban and suburban skies, the background is all grey and muddy, washing out minute detail in DSO's. Tonight it was reveling in its travels to the milky way and back. I was determined to do some visual observing so I started off the night using the GOTO and the Travelscope on some of the more obvious and brighter targets such as the nebulae in Sagittarius, the open and globular clusters in Scorpius, some planetary nebulae in Lyra, Aquila and Vulpecula (you know who they are ;). I even checked out some now fast sinking galaxies such as M81/82 in Ursa Major, M51 in Canes Venatici, M64 and NGC 4565 in Coma. After perusing some of the faves, I decided to start imaging some of the now fast disappearing galaxies. Started off with M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici. Wow when the image came on the screen I could not believe my eyes. The spiral arms were so obvious. Due to the slight winds, I could only imaging for short burst and it was exasperating as I had to be on constant alert to stop the exposure when the winds started to kick up. Imaging at Mount Pinos is a test of patience.

M8 : The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius

Next stop was also another galaxy, M64. This one surprised me too as the black eye was so obvious, even though I could not expose it for as long as I wanted to. I will revisit this galaxies someday from Malibu when the conditions are optimal. Pinos is just not an ideal spot for imaging. Other DSO's I imaged throughout the night included some which I had imaged previously from my suburban site. M8, the Lagoon Nebula was nice, although I need a much wider FOV. the narrow FOV of the  Meade DSI did not do this object justice. I aim to image this object with the Travelscope at some point in time...maybe even from my light polluted playground.

M20 : The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius

M20, the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius showed more nebulosity at shorter exposures from Pinos in comparison to my light polluted playground in Culver City. This object is framed nicely as it covers a smaller area in comparison to its neighbor M8. M16, the Eagle Nebula was nice as well and showed more of its wispy nebulosity at shorter exposures. The real revelation was M17, the Swan Nebula. I never get tired of imaging this beauty. So much detail even from suburbia. Even better from Pinos. If only I could have tried for longer exposures and more frames!!!!!!!

M17 : The Swan/Omega Nebula in Sagittarius

Also imaged star clusters. M22, the crackerjack was an obvious choice. Did not get better images than what I obtained previously at Malibu when the skies were calmer and I could expose for longer periods. Also imaged M11, the Wild Duck cluster in Scutum. This one is a very rich open cluster that does not resemble a flock of migrating ducks, unless you view it in smaller scopes that do not resolve its fainter members.

M16 : The Eagle Nebula in Sagittarius

Was also planning to image M57, the Ring Nebula and M27, the Dumbbell Nebula as I have yet to image this from a dark sky site (I did very good results from suburbia mainly due to me being able to take multiple frames and longer exposures due to the still nights here, coupled with my Orion SkyGlow filter). Both were also overhead so I gave up. Also the computer battery started to blink....the HP Laptop battery usually last approximately 2 1/2 hours and I was really pushing it. To avoid losing data due to the system shutting down on me, I decided to call it a night for imaging.

M11 : The Wild Duck Cluster in Scutum

The next couple of hours were spend leisurely perusing the milky way with my naked eye (have not felt this relaxed in ages!!!!!) and hunting some new objects to sketch in Draco, a constellation I am very unfamilliar with due to its close proximity to the pole star and Ursa Minor. I sketched a total of 10 new objects, including the famous Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543). The other 9 were galaxies in Draco: NGC 6503, 6015, 5985, 5965, 5907, 5905, 5866, 5308 and 5322.

M22 : The Crackerjack Cluster in Sagittarius

So yes I was fulfilled. I did not drive as far in this time and the lights from the turnoff from the I5 were still visible, plus I had a visit from a friendly local sheriff. But the weather has not been this nice and balmy at Pinos in a while. Plus the winds did behave occasionally, allowing enough "in between" time to image what I had set out to. I went home with a big smile on my face. And I had such a good time, I did not realize it was already 4am when I started heading home......next time hopefully Malibu!