Saturday night the 26th, Derek, Peter N, Bob C and
myself ventured down Hwy 25 from Hollister to
Jefferson School, just south of the Pinnacles. This is
in the valley that lies east of the Gabilans, next
valley over from the Salinas. It's remote, with Basque
sheepherders working the hills to the east of there,
leading eventually to the San Joaquin.
Ranger Chad from Pinnacles National Monument set this
all up. He turns out to be a very cool guy who works
about 30% of his professional time pursuing dark sky
issues across the US. Kathy Greene,
teacher/principal/chief haranguer of Jefferson, hosted
the binge. It's a K-8 school, and all 10 kids showed
up. They fed us a nice dinner.
The sky cooperated marvelously. Some 10 miles north of
the school there was high haze across the sky, and
sure enough at Jefferson it was crystal clear. We had
a 6.2 limiting magnitude sky with seeing 4/5, good.
Most interesting and fun was the role reversal. For us
stargazing types, moonrise means packing-up time,
right? Not for the kids. They were staying up
specifically to see the Moon come up. Theophilus and
Catullus and Caterina were right along the terminator,
and the seeing was fine for getting oohs and aahs.
Saturn got high enough for them all to catch a peek
before rolling into their sleeping bags. It was a long
awaited sleepover party for the whole crew of kids.
And of course we handed out a full range of objects,
your colorful double stars, your galaxies, your PN's,
OC's and GC's. It remains to be seen how Pinnacles
shapes up as an observing location for those of us
within easy reach, but this starparty couldn't have
been more worth it. Everyone had a real big time.
Thanks again to Peter for spearheading this event.
JD
=====
Jamie Dillon <*> ngc1023jd@No-Spam
http://www.winepress.com/jd1.htm
http://observers.org, the link to ...
TAC - anarchy at work
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