[OR] Pinnacles West 07/10/2026
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Francesco Meschia
Jul 12, 2026, 3:43:59 PM (2 days ago) Jul 12
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Last Friday I went to the west side of Pinnacles to do some imaging. I had been following the weather forecasts since the holiday weekend, and it was clear that Friday, not Saturday, was going to be the only usable night of the New Moon weekend.
I left the Bay Area early, hoping to beat the traffic, but when I got to the West gate around 5:40 PM I had been at the wheel for over three hours anyway. The visitor center was already closed, and in the parking lot there were only a couple of cars of hikers. It was a beautiful evening, with very clear skies and what looked like very good transparency.
I left the Bay Area early, hoping to beat the traffic, but when I got to the West gate around 5:40 PM I had been at the wheel for over three hours anyway. The visitor center was already closed, and in the parking lot there were only a couple of cars of hikers. It was a beautiful evening, with very clear skies and what looked like very good transparency.
Richard Navarrete
Jul 12, 2026, 4:16:06 PM (2 days ago) Jul 12
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Sounds like a fun and productive night. Great images!
On Sunday, July 12, 2026, 12:44 PM, Francesco Meschia <francesc...@gmail.com> wrote:
Last Friday I went to the west side of Pinnacles to do some imaging. I had been following the weather forecasts since the holiday weekend, and it was clear that Friday, not Saturday, was going to be the only usable night of the New Moon weekend.I left the Bay Area early, hoping to beat the traffic, but when I got to the West gate around 5:40 PM I had been at the wheel for over three hours anyway. The visitor center was already closed, and in the parking lot there were only a couple of cars of hikers. It was a beautiful evening, with very clear skies and what looked like very good transparency.
--Observing Sites, Observing Reports, About TAC linked at top of:Subscribers post to the mailing list at:---You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Astronomy Connection (TAC)" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sf-bay-tac+...@googlegroups.com.To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/CE23EE60-18CE-437A-86F8-8DEBB20624C5%40gmail.com.
It was still 88F at 6PM, but in the shade it was actually quite comfortable. I spent a couple of hours reading and birding, and eventually decided on a spot and assembled the telescope. Shortly after I was joined in the parking lot by Charles and Julie, and by Mark Tomalonis. Charles and Julie had a 6” wide field reflector, and Mark had his beautiful 22” short focus Dob.
My plan was to image one of the “animals” in Cepheus: LDN 1251 the “Rotting Fish” nebula. For some reason, Cepheus has a lot of marine animals swimming in its molecular clouds: the Squid, the Dark Shark, the Eel, the Seahorse… LDN 1251 is part of the “aquarium": a large dust cloud with a dense core that peters out into gossamer-like wisps through which one can even see a few far galaxies. July through September are perfect for imaging targets in Cepheus, because even though the night is short, the geometrical conditions are just perfect, and they can be followed from low elevation all the way through the meridian and in their descending arc.
After firing up the imaging gear and fixing an unexpected network problem, I took a series of LRGB flat frames and then I let automation run the rig. In the meantime, I started sweeping the sky, first with my unaided eyes, and then with my binoculars. Even though the sky quality meter only read 21.25 mag/arcsec2, the milky way appeared nicely structured. Mark shared with me a few great views of edge-on galaxies in his 22”, and a bit later we hunted for Stephan’s Quintet and for the Deer Lick galaxy. But for me the best view of the night was certainly M13: not only it was big and bright, but it showed an amazing dynamic range of stars. Such a difference from the rather “flat” appearance it often has in photographs (or at least in mine).
My companions ended up leaving early, around midnight, and for the rest of the night I kept track of my imaging run and managed to get a few hours of sleep. At 5 AM I started packing up, and at 6 AM I was driving out of the park gate (which, interestingly, was already open and it looked like it had been tied in the open position – I hope it doesn’t mean that it was vandalized again). After the first bend, I had to stop the car to soak in the most beautiful view: in the distance, the rising sun was glancing the top of a layer of fog that filled the entire Salinas valley:
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As for astro-imaging, this is what I came up with by processing the data collected on Friday night:
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Francesco
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Francesco Meschia
Jul 12, 2026, 4:37:55 PM (2 days ago) Jul 12
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Hi everyone,
Looks like my message got shortened to just the first two paragraphs in the web interface. Let me post here it again in its entirety (but without pictures):
Last Friday I went to the west side of Pinnacles to do some imaging. I had been following the weather forecasts since the holiday weekend, and it was clear that Friday, not Saturday, was going to be the only usable night of the New Moon weekend.
I left the Bay Area early, hoping to beat the traffic, but when I got to the West gate around 5:40 PM I had been at the wheel for over three hours anyway. The visitor center was already closed, and in the parking lot there were only a couple of cars of hikers. It was a beautiful evening, with very clear skies and what looked like very good transparency.
I left the Bay Area early, hoping to beat the traffic, but when I got to the West gate around 5:40 PM I had been at the wheel for over three hours anyway. The visitor center was already closed, and in the parking lot there were only a couple of cars of hikers. It was a beautiful evening, with very clear skies and what looked like very good transparency.
[picture]
It was still 88F at 6PM, but in the shade it was actually quite comfortable. I spent a couple of hours reading and birding, and eventually decided on a spot and assembled the telescope. Shortly after I was joined in the parking lot by Charles and Julie, and by Mark Tomalonis. Charles and Julie had a 6” wide field reflector, and Mark had his beautiful 22” short focus Dob.
My plan was to image one of the “animals” in Cepheus: LDN 1251 the “Rotting Fish” nebula. For some reason, Cepheus has a lot of marine animals swimming in its molecular clouds: the Squid, the Dark Shark, the Eel, the Seahorse… LDN 1251 is part of the “aquarium": a large dust cloud with a dense core that peters out into gossamer-like wisps through which one can even see a few far galaxies. July through September are perfect for imaging targets in Cepheus, because even though the night is short, the geometrical conditions are just perfect, and they can be followed from low elevation all the way through the meridian and in their descending arc.
After firing up the imaging gear and fixing an unexpected network problem, I took a series of LRGB flat frames and then I let automation run the rig. In the meantime, I started sweeping the sky, first with my unaided eyes, and then with my binoculars. Even though the sky quality meter only read 21.25 mag/arcsec2, the milky way appeared nicely structured. Mark shared with me a few great views of edge-on galaxies in his 22”, and a bit later we hunted for Stephan’s Quintet and for the Deer Lick galaxy. But for me the best view of the night was certainly M13: not only it was big and bright, but it showed an amazing dynamic range of stars. Such a difference from the rather “flat” appearance it often has in photographs (or at least in mine).
My plan was to image one of the “animals” in Cepheus: LDN 1251 the “Rotting Fish” nebula. For some reason, Cepheus has a lot of marine animals swimming in its molecular clouds: the Squid, the Dark Shark, the Eel, the Seahorse… LDN 1251 is part of the “aquarium": a large dust cloud with a dense core that peters out into gossamer-like wisps through which one can even see a few far galaxies. July through September are perfect for imaging targets in Cepheus, because even though the night is short, the geometrical conditions are just perfect, and they can be followed from low elevation all the way through the meridian and in their descending arc.
After firing up the imaging gear and fixing an unexpected network problem, I took a series of LRGB flat frames and then I let automation run the rig. In the meantime, I started sweeping the sky, first with my unaided eyes, and then with my binoculars. Even though the sky quality meter only read 21.25 mag/arcsec2, the milky way appeared nicely structured. Mark shared with me a few great views of edge-on galaxies in his 22”, and a bit later we hunted for Stephan’s Quintet and for the Deer Lick galaxy. But for me the best view of the night was certainly M13: not only it was big and bright, but it showed an amazing dynamic range of stars. Such a difference from the rather “flat” appearance it often has in photographs (or at least in mine).
My companions ended up leaving early, around midnight, and for the rest of the night I kept track of my imaging run and managed to get a few hours of sleep. At 5 AM I started packing up, and at 6 AM I was driving out of the park gate (which, interestingly, was already open and it looked like it had been tied in the open position – I hope it doesn’t mean that it was vandalized again). After the first bend, I had to stop the car to soak in the most beautiful view: in the distance, the rising sun was glancing the top of a layer of fog that filled the entire Salinas valley.
[picture]
As for astro-imaging, this is what I came up with by processing the data collected on Friday night
[picture]
Francesco
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/1217742084.418674.1783887355015%40mail.yahoo.com.
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