Saturday the 16th of May should be renamed Astronomy Day!

So last Saturday was a blast, astronomy wise anyway. Had a close astronomy buddy visit me for the first time after my move from Los Angeles to the bay area. He was keen to catch up and talk astronomy, as well as visit some of the astro related places in and around where I live, which is plenty. Terry Nakazono has been my astro bro since I bumped into him doing sidewalk astronomy close to the Ronald Reagen UCLA Hospital way back in 2012. I remember the first conversation I had with him about his Orion 80ST and how to "improve" on the views of his then new scope. Terry was also my first mate in astronomy after moving from the land down under, and he was also the one who introduced me to the awesome Solstice Canyon site, where I did the bulk of my observing and imaging, whilst working in Los Angeles. We shared a lot of observing sessions together at Solstice Canyon, and also Mount Pinos and Lockwood Valley. Terry also happens to be one of the most experienced visual observer I know, having logged 1060 deep sky objects to date with his plethora of small scopes (all of his observations are done with scopes 4.5" and smaller). His dedication to seeking out DSO's is legendary.

"UC run Lick Observatory"

Anyways we had been planning his visit for weeks, so we had a rough idea of what we wanted to do and see. The main focus was to spend some time observing together under dark skies as we hadn't done that in a while. Also Terry wanted to visit Orion Telescopes Cupertino store to see the displayed telescopes in the flesh, as well as to meet some of the people behind the educational videos that Orion makes. I personally love Orion Telescopes, and go there frequently just to talk about things astronomy and telescope related. So it was only natural for Terry go there and meet these good people, in which he did. Part of the fun of our hobby is sharing our enthusiam for observing and equipment. Orion provides both. It was a pity they did not have the tube rings he was after. Well at least he got himself a cool Orion red light keychain!

"The biggest dome off in the distance houses the 120" reflector"

Next up on the agenda was a drive up to Lick Observatory. I was stoked too since the last time I was up there was actually a trip we made in 2007 to scope around (pun intended) for postdoctoral jobs following my doctoral thesis submission. As we had spent a good deal of time at the Orion store, we were running a little late for our trip up to Lick. But seeing how the weather was behaving itself, plus Terry was only going to be here for half a day on Sunday, we decided to bite the bullet and make our way up the mountain. It helps that the sun does not set till closer to 9pm this time of the year. The only catch was the observatory closes its doors at 5pm. As they say better to try and make it than never.

"36" manual Lick refractor"

After driving up the super windy road (I was reminded again how I hate driving up windy and narrow roads). This drive up gave me a nasty headache afterwards. Good thing it did not set in until I was done for the day. We arrived with approximately 20 minutes to spare, so we quickly made our way into the observatory and caught the last guided tour for the 36" manual Lick refractor. At least Terry got to see this legendary refractor. The doors to the 40" Shane reflector in the same building was closed, and we did not have enough time to make it to the 120" reflector, housed in a much bigger dome on the other side. But we did have enough daylight to take in the sights in and around the dome of the observatory so all was good. This was also Terry's first visit to a working observatory so he was stoked.

"A pensive Terry and the 36"

We planned to end the day with an old fashion observing session, to rekindle the camaraderia that we shared on our many observing runs in SoCal, be it at the temple of the stars, Mount Pinos, off the road at Lockwood Valley, or Solstice Canyon in Malibu. Terry had with him his ST 50mm Meade refractor, that he planned to try out for the first time under darker orange zone skies. I just wanted to enjoy a good  visual run with any telescope I had. Ended up picking the Orion StarSeeker II 130mm parabolic newtonian on my Vixen PortaMount.

"SoCal Astro Bros"

After a hearty dinner at a local Applebys, we made our way up to Saratoga Gap. The skies were nice and crystal clear on our way up so we had high hopes. However on getting to our end point, we were greeted with a rather nasty looking thick marine layer. The fog was so thick, we could feel the water droplets forming this marine layer. We waited around for 15 minutes before deciding to drive back down the ridge to see if we could find another spot that was not afflicted by the fog. The heavens did smile on us and we were rewarded with a transition red to orange zone parking lot (more orange than red was my guess). Having just seen a rather large mountain lion on the side of the road on our descent, we felt we were going to get lucky, with at least a couple of hours of good visual fun. And that we got. Terry wanted to push the envelope with his small scope so he got to work right away. He mounted his 50mm OTA on my Orion Paragon HD-F2 mount as all he had was a flimsy photo tripod. I had my heart set on seeking out faint fuzzies in the realm of galaxies. I was not disappointed as I hit galaxy after galaxy in the Leo, Virgo, Coma,  CVn and Ursa Major area. Having a wide field scope and a red dot finder makes the job a whole lot easier. These days I find myself more partial to using red dot finders to optical finders! And Terry bagged some galaxies in his 50 mm, such a NGC 2903 in Leo. All in all a great night. I do hope I get to do this more often. Seems like I have become more of a social creature and relish the times I get to observe in the company of a good mate. Till the next time.