OR Pinnacles Saturday night the 16th

[Jamie Dillon, DDK]

Various TACos have seen fancy night skies this New Moon cycle, at Lake Sonoma, Coe, Pinnacles, secret spot B down by Mission San Antonio, out the Panoche Valley. Saturday night at the Pinnacles we did not have epic skies, but we did have a good time.

Mark Tomalonis, Gopal and Francesco were there, the latter two with their snazzy imaging rigs, and Mark with his big dished-out Dobs.

One fine moment was when Francesco was looking over my scope, intrigued at the design. Told him Albert Highe had designed and built it to take to Australia. He looked up and said brightly, "This is Johannes!”

There was high cirrus in bands across the sky at dark, the clouds came and went and came again, but in between we had 2 solid hours of stars across the sky. Limiting magnitude for me was 5.8. Seeing was OK, 4/5. On the BTIT scale, it was Significantly Better Than In Town.

Shortly after dark, Francesco asked if there was anything cool going on with Jupiter. Good timing, there was an Io shadow transit just then, with the GRS running parallel in the opposite equatorial band.

We shared views of various celebrity objects, in Tomalonis’s scope and in Johannes. The triangle of M84, M86 and 4388, with 4377 tucked right in the middle of that equilateral. Yes the head of Markarian’s Chain. The Sombrero M104 was impressive in that 22.

M65, M66 and 3628 in Leo (see Francesco, finally got those two straight). 5907 has a supernova going (2026kid), which I wouldn't have been able to see in Johannes. Showed up in Mark’s 22”, to averted vision, ca 50% of the time.
If you don’t know it by name, 5907 is a showpiece, long and lanky and complex, a sharp knife-edged spiral with slim dust lanes. I could go on.

You can tell it was a night for eye candy.

Gopal is a serious photographer, showed off some incredible pictures from New Zealand of the Aurora Australis, and of the southern Milky Way with the Magellanic Clouds.

And about Gopal, he might have been less happy about the conditions than the other 3 of us, given that he lives in Pleasanton. He only grumped here on the list, after the fact!

Ranger Ryder dropped by, a very genial young man, enthusiastic about astronomy. His grandfather had a set of telescopes. He turned off the lights at the visitors center. Things are looking way up from last August at the Pinnacles.

We looked at omega Centauri in binocs and the eyepiece. I don’t even try to resist that vast globular. My third time gawking at it this spring. Just frickin’ astounding.

After midnight, vwoomp the sky was thoroughly cloudy. We whistled as we packed up.

There were choruses of coyotes off to the west at 8:30. Saw a deer and a big owl on the way out.

[Peter Natscher]

Ryder?  Is he ranger "Thomas" that Dave C and I met the evening of the 7th? He went into the main office and turned off the lights for us, too.

A big white owl? In my two park exits at 1:30am passing the gate on the evenings of the 7th and 11th, a really big white owl illumated by my headlights (with a large wing spread) glided close over my vehicle in my direction leading the way out for me. It was a sign of the great night of observing I just had.

[Jamie Dillon, DDK]

Hey Peter. Ryder is this ranger's first name, so we have at least two very cordial rangers there now.

The owl could have been white or grey, was flying off at a perpendicular. Sure was big.

Now I want a top quality night like you and Dave had!

[Francesco Meschia]

Large owl, pale in color =>  American barn owl.

The only other large owl in the area is the Great horned owl, but it’s dark brown.

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[Jamie Dillon, DDK]

Thanks, Francesco. So definitely a barn owl. There is either one or a set of them who show along that road.

[Aris Pope]

Those barn owls are cool looking with their heart shaped faces

Aris

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[Muriel Dulieu]

I wish I could have come. It sounds like it was great fun! And I would have loved another look at Omega Centauri! 

I saw this barn owl on my way back from Coe. 

-Muriel

Sent from my iPhone

On May 18, 2026, at 9:26 PM, Aris Pope <arispo...@gmail.com> wrote:



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