I am trying to be more consistent with my dark sky observing runs. SoCal residents living near the coast get hit hard during the summer months as the marine layer pretty much comes in every other night, and this is not just restricted to the June Gloom month! My observing buddy and fellow Los Angeleno Terry Nakazono has been observing from SoCal since he came back to the hobby in 2010. His experiences with observing in the summer months has been bad. So bad that he has to resort to making trips to the desert and basically anywhere away from the coastline to get clearer skies. Since I have been observing a lot more lately from Malibu, I started to feel the need to get to a place where I could escape the marine layer. Mount Pinos is one of these places that is high enough to escape the marine layer. Another added advantage is that it is only about 1 1/2 hours from where I live, making it a doable single night trip. Plus this summer has been rather warm (well warmer to me than last year at least!). If my last trip there was pleasant, the session on Saturday night was even better! The temps were a balmy 20 degrees celcius (about 60 degrees farenheigh). To make it better, transparency was pretty good and the skies were steady too!
Got the car packed up pretty early at shortly after lunch. This time I had planned to not do any comparison observation. It was going to be a strictly observing trip. I even had a short list of objects, which I culled from a larger list I made way back when I was still making observing list in Brisbane for my sessions at Leyburn. I had some northern sky DSO's that I had noted that would have been impossible from my southerly declination back in oz. Alas good intentions do not always bear fruit. This time of the year Virgo sets pretty early, slightly after astronomical twilight. Also the galaxy zoo in the direction of Coma Berenices-Canes Venatici also sank fast after twilight. Oh well there is always the brighter stuff I can revisit, plus some of the fall constellations to look out for later in the night.
After a shower and a light dinner, I called Terry up and we were on our way by about 10 past 6 pm. Surprisingly the drive up there went pretty quick. I guess that's what happens when you are all fired up to observe and there is someone who is equally as enthusiastic as you in the car. When we pulled up into the parking lot up on Pinos, we were greeted by a throng of cars and people. Geeze we had to park practically at the mouth of the entrance into the parking lot. I have never seen Pinos this crowded before. Must be the good weather conditions! I later also learned that there was a class being conducted that night.
As we had some time to kill, after checking the collimation of our scopes (I was armed with my Celestron/Vixen C6 on Vixen Porta mount and my Orion Skyscanner table top on my Orion Paragon FD2 photo tripod), we decided to wander around and talk to our fellow astronomers. Some of the more hardcore folk have been up there since last night with their RV's. There were some big Obsession and Obsession type scopes up there. The biggest scope was probably the 25" Obsession, followed by a 22" and a 20" monster. There might be another 25 incher but I could not locate the owner. The field also played host to several astrophotographers. My other Pinos buddy Dave, who was supposed to be there unfortunately did not make it.
I started off the night in my usual astrophotography tinkering. I had with me new/old Meade DSI one shot color CCD camera. This cam is definately more light sensitive than the Orion Starshoot Color Solar System Imager IV, which I returned (and there will be a write up on the cams as soon as I get some half decent shots to post!). I had the same problem with not having enough backfocus!!!!! Sheesh looks like the cams are not going to work with my short focal length newtonians. Will have to see if I can get it to work with my 10" dob. If not I might need to get a short focal length refractor to image. What I did accomplish though is get some defocussed stars in the FOV. At least I know the cam is sensitive enough for deeper fair. All I need to work out now is the backfocus issue! There is no easy remedy for this, save moving the whole primary mirror cell forward.
With the tinkering out of the way, it was time to get down to some serious visual observing. I started off my "not so dark adapted" eyes on some easy objects like open clusters and globular clusters. First up was the rich starfields in Sagittarius and Scorpius. Unfortunately due to our position close to the entrance of the parking lot, there wasn't that much room to move around (well until later when the non hardcore astronomers started to leave at about 11pm!). Scorpius was hiding behind a tree so I could only manage M80 at the head of the scorpion. The nebulous puffs that was M8, the Lagoon Nebula, M20, the Trifid Nebula, the small Sagittarius starcloud, M17, the Swan Nebula and M16, the Eagle Nebula were all easy fare so I started with those, this time mostly focused on using the OIII filter to observe the darker features. With these observations, I can confirm that there is definately less nebulosity visible in these objects (well the extent of the nebula anyway) using this filter. I spent a good amount of time scrutinizing each object and then moved onto M22, the crackerjack cluster in Sagittarius. Again I got the impression of this object resembling Omega Centauri at high power as it is just such a loose globular! I also had high power looks with the C6 at M28, two other globulars close to M8 and M10 and M12 in Ophiuchus! Then I panned to M11, the Wild Duck cluster in Scutum. This object actually looks better at low to medium magnification as it keeps the cluster compact, showcasing its flock of wild ducks in arrow formation.
My now better dark adapted eyes were ready for some galaxy action. With the galaxy fields fast sinking, I had to work fast if I wanted to see anything. I started off with Ursa Major's M101 and M51. This time I tried the Orion Skyglow broadband filter to see if it enhanced the view of the galaxies. To my amazement (well I half expected it to work), the galaxies looked much better with the filter in place. The galaxies looked "contrastier" and gave up their details a little easier. I later used this filter to observe the dark lanes in M31, the Andromeda Galaxy and the spiral arms and the star forming region in M33, the Triangulum Galaxy! Other scrutinized galaxies included M106, M63, the Sunflower galaxy and M?? in Canes Venatici.
After oogling the galaxy zoo, I decided to go back to some nebula observing, staring with some stellar graveyards. M57, the Ring Nebula is my fave planetary nebula. With or without the filter, this object is a stunner in even small scopes. My best views of this object have been with my 10" when it really does resemble a celestial smoke ring! But the C6 does a darn good job too. M27, the dumbbell nebula is no slouch either and this curious football shaped (well with the narrowband filter in place. Without the filter, the apple core visage is easier to descern) object was strutting its stuff. With the OIII filter screwed in, all three portions was visible. Again the views were nice in both my smaller scopes. But this view is marred by the wonderful views I got with my 10", with the NPB filter in place . I will never forget that night in Leyburn when the Veil Nebula looked striated and braided, looking much like a black and white photograph! I also hit the North American Nebula with the C6, but the best views of this expansive nebula came with the Skyscanner at very low power. Again the Pelican Nebula was easily visible.
With Andromeda now up and most of Pegasus, I decided to swing over to M31 and its companions, M32 and M110. All three looked very good. This turned to great when I decided to give the Orion Skyglow broadband filter a go. Wow oh wow, the dust lanes jumped out and M31 seemed to stretch on forever. I wonder if this was coupled with the fact that M31 was still not super high in the sky. M33 pulled the same trick with the Skyglow filter in place . I though I could just make out its spiral arms with the filter in place!
It was now getting late and I was starting to tire. I figured I take a quick break from standing up and observing , and shoot some wide field shots with my Kodak Z990. I retired the Skyscanner from its perch on the Paragon photo tripod so I could mount the camera. Pushing the ISO all the way to 6400 and using its maximum exposure of 16 seconds, I look some shots of the southern milky way (M8 and up, as well as the region around M11, M31 the Andromeda Galaxy and the double cluster in Perseus, Lyra the constellation and even the head of Cygnus, around the bright star Deneb).
Now that I was rested, I went back to bright and easy stuff again, My final objects of the night was the double cluster in Perseus, M13 the great Hercules cluster and M30 in Capricorn. Terry also showed me Banard's Galaxy in Capricornus. It was faint but definately there. By then the clouds started moving in from the east. It was the end of yet another perfect night up at the temple of the stars. Next trip up would probably be in September or October.....