OR 1: Hopes of a good night went up in smoke

[Akarsh Simha]

As declared on the sister list CDSE, I was going to a CDSE site in the Los Padres NF called “Route 66” on Saturday, arriving late after a conference I really wanted to attend.

I left the insightful conference a bit early and made it to Route 66 by 8pm, right around sunset. While driving, I saw flashing lights in the rear view… oops. Turns out I was being passed by a fire truck. This can’t be good, I surmised.

Sure enough, a few miles down the road I saw a smoke plume. There was an active fire not far from Route 66. Nevertheless non-astronomer campers were present nearby as McMark had insightfully warned me (oh the increasing popularity of the site). I was reluctant to go to another site down the main road as it would draw me closer to the smoke plume.

As choppers with CalFire written on them hovered back and forth to the fire, I also saw ground troops when driving further down to find a third less-ideal site that was unoccupied after our two usual sites on Route 66 were taken.

This particular fallback site was even worse when it came to southern obstruction than the regular Rte66 site, but I had other problems — the fire. A pickup truck flew by on the road, watched me “setting up shop” and helpfully pointed towards the fire like I hadn’t seen it. Anyway, I had already gotten through to a very helpful chap named Chad at the forest service, who reached out to the fire crew and called me back telling me that I was safe to camp “for now”. It looks like the crews suppressed the fire fully by nightfall, but I was still on edge. I only set up my binocular just in case I had to evacuate — I could throw everything into the truck and be out of there in 10 minutes.

It turns out I’d left my counterweights at home… I had to get creative. Here is the result, it worked perfectly — a gallon jug distilled water bungeed to the counterweight rod gave most of the torque and I adjusted it for precise balance by C-clamping my drill bag at the right point.

 

If you read the August 2026 issue of Sky & Telescope you know what I chase with my binoculars of late — dark nebulae. IMO these are nicer in my binos than in my scope.

I started out with the two globulars in Baade’s window near gamma Sagittarii—NGC 6522 and NGC 6528—and the dark nebulae B 298. Also just off gamma Sgr lies B295 and nearby LDN 1788.

I then spent some time admiring the region around Ptolemy’s Cluster M7 — it has several dark nebulae straddling it and a couple open clusters. Those are B283, B286, B287, Trumpler 30 and NGC 6444.

Then I made my first dark nebula sketch: the Parrot’s Head. In the August 2026 S&T article, I mention not seeing the two faint filaments of the parrot’s head. This time, I did!

I looked at more dark nebulae and clusters in Corona Australis, Scutum and Aquila through the rest of the night, but it’s worth mentioning M55 and M75. M75 was recently featured as Object of the Week on DeepSkyForum, so it was fresh on my mind. M 55 just happened to be in the area and given its large size it’s just a great globular for the binoculars! Overall I logged some 23 objects, new and old.

I pulled under the shade of a tree and slept that night. When I woke up, it was surprisingly hot—even with the bucket swamp cooler running. A bit surprising that I had managed to sleep solidly. I couldn’t run my truck for air conditioning as I was parked on dry grass—the fire last evening was an ominous reminder of the conditions. I packed up and decided to drive around at the very least because I desperately needed air conditioning. I felt disappointed in myself—as a survivor of GSSP2024 I had expected better. Turns out, my car thermometer read, it was hotter than GSSP2024 — 108° F. I felt vindicated for being unable to take it. Astrospheric was forecasting highs of 85°F!

Even though the other campers had left, the fire was out and the forecast looked good, the untenable heat made me decide to leave. But I wasn’t going to waste away all of that driving effort for a binocular night. I decided to explore some alternate sites and come back to Rte66 if I had to…

(To be continued)

Clear Skies

Akarsh

[Aris Pope]

I remember that GSSP. Redding set a temperature record that Saturday with a high of 119⁰ F. 

July 6, 2024 to be exact. 

It's been a rough year for Astro between the clouds, smoke and heat. And El Nino is loading for the winter.

Aris

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[Mark]

Thanks for posting, Akarsh!  Love experiential writing.... like being on a ride-along.

[Richard Navarrete]

Another adventure for Akarsh! Thanks for taking us along. What mount are you using for your 100(?)mm binoculars? My old Unimount is a bit light for my 25x100’s.

Richard

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[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Richard

They are 25x100, and on a parallelogram mount—the same one Mahesh brought to Coe. He was kind enough to make multiple trips to my place and return it just before I left!

Regards

Akarsh

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[Richard Navarrete]

Rats! I saw it set-up, but there was always a crowd over there so I didn’t check them out.

Richard

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