The Heavens are Telling
Insomnia is a terrible thing to waste. Our second night at Mammoth, I couldn't sleep--so about 2:00 AM I ventured out to Lookout Mountain to see if it really was a good observing site. The map said to take 3S06, so I wrote that down on the palm of my hand. Sure enough, there was a dirt road turning off US 395. When I finally found a sign, it said I was on 3S04. Perhaps I had miscopied to my hand or, perhaps I had written a 4 and now thought it looked like a 6. After a half-hour of bouncing around dirt roads in the dark I realized I was lost. Finally, I came to a sign that pointed me back to 395. Just as I arrived at the highway, I saw the sign--"3S06/Lookout Mountain -->"--and off I went. 10 minutes later I was up on top, looking at the stars.
Two days later, Justin, Bobby, Daniel, Daddy & I got up at 2:30 AM, and arrived at Lookout Mountain just as the moon was setting, to see the stars and watch for meteors--it was the morning before the peak of the Perseid shower. The next morning, August 12th, would have been spectacular--there was an auroral display that was visible from as far south as Los Angeles, but we didn't know that the night before. The Perseid shower was pretty cool. We didn't do any official meteor counting, but noticed about one or two every minute. Everybody but Justin saw a bright fireball with a train that persisted for several minutes--Justin was answering nature's call and faced the wrong way at the wrong time. Murphy strikes again!
I set my camera up and took 10 minute exposures with a 28mm lens from 3:00 AM through 5:00 AM when the sky got too bright. I had hoped to capture some meteor trails. Even though I used high speed (ASA 1600) film, none showed up. I wish I'd cancelled my exposure right after the fire ball and photographed its glowing trail. Next time!
Here I am in my 3:00 AM
glory, getting blinded by the camera flash! That sure improved my night vision . . . NOT!
Some one minute exposures of Milky Way
star clouds. The one on the right contains the constellation Cygnus, The Swan, also known
as the Northern Cross. Whenever I can find my notebook again, I might figure out where I
had the camera pointed for the one on the left!
Jupiter is nearly dead-center in this photo. Using my small telescope we
were able to see the four Gallilean moons of Jupiter: Europa, Io, Callisto, and Ganymede.
They all lined up nicely on either side of the planet, in as perfect a line as Miss
Squire, my third grade teacher, could ever have hoped for. I observed the moons both on
the night I had insomnia, and on the night of meteor observations. It was really cool
seeing that they had changed positions!
Half-way between Jupiter and the top lies the Pleiades cluster, also known as the "Seven Sisters". I find it difficult to make out seven sisters. I can make out six, eight, or more (with binocs), but not seven. Several legends from around the world tell of how one of the sisters fell in love with a mortal and left the sky to live with him. It is quite likely that within human history one of the stars has dimmed appreciably.
Between Jupiter and the Pleiades, and to their right, lies Saturn. My scope is so small that we couldn't really make out the rings, it just looked like a blurred star--that was disappointing. Just below and slightly to the right of Jupiter lie the Hyades. They appear to be a "V" lying on its side. The brightest of the Hyades. is Aldebaran, a red giant. It lies just to the right and a few degrees below Jupiter.
This is Orion rising. Orion is
usually a "Winter" constellation, but you can view it during the summer if
you're crazy enough to leave your warm bed for a wind-swept mountain top at 3:30 in the
morning! Betelgeuse is a red giant that forms Orion's right shoulder. If Betelgeuse were
our sun, its surface would lie between Mars and Jupiter (it varies in diameter and
brightness). Earth would lie within the sun!
Orion's left shoulder is Beletrix and his right knee is Rigel. The "great" nebula of Orion, M42, lies in his "sword". The streak of light crossing the photo is a satellite. The stars are slightly blurred by the earth's rotation. The red glow to the right is the light from my camera's exposure indicator leaking back through the focus screen, through the prism, around the mirror, and into the film.
Cleaning Up at Dawn!
Normally I wouldn't take a picture
of my dad's back end leaning into the rear end of our car (even though he made me wait to open Christmas presents each year while he set
up his camera equipment!). But, this is one of our last pictures of "Opus", the little red Subaru who
struggled to move us down the California highways.
At the end of our Mammoth trip, my parents gave me a ride home, while Karen took the children north to visit her brother, Bill. In the middle of nowhere, the Subaru threw a rod & died. Bill picked them up & they rented a van to drive home. So, I had to keep this photo of the little red wagon we bought just before Rachel was born. She cried to leave it behind.
Dawn images. To the left is Orion, the center is Jupiter, and the right
is star trails around Polaris, the North Star. The coolest dawn sight was Sirius, which
didn't show up well on film. We spotted a green and red flashing light on the horizon. I
told Daniel I thought it was a plane, but it wasn't--it was the star Sirius twinkling
through a thick layer of atmosphere in the pre-dawn brownish/red murk. Even though Sirius
is the brightest star in the night sky (And which star is the brightest in the daytime
sky?), I found it amazing that it could shine through the bright sky and thick atmosphere
brightly enough to have the red and green components separated.
Here's the view from Lookout
Mountain towards Mammoth. Notice how low the Sierra Crest is to the horizon. This is
an excellent spot for stargazing. If it weren't for the dust from the road, it might be
perfect!
Visits
10/07/01