[OR] Fremont peak 1/18/26

[Francesco Meschia]

Hi TACos,

On Sunday, the 18th, I went to Fremont Peak SP for my first time. I arrived at the parking lot a few minutes before sunset – during the climb, I *had* to stop the car a couple of times and get out to soak in the beauty of the valley at sunset, with sweeping views going all the way to the Monterey Bay to the northwest, and to the Diablo Range peaks to the northeast.

Daniel Vancura was already there, and after visiting all three parking lots, we decided that the SW lot would work best for us. We are both imagers, so once our capture sequences had started, we started looking at the sky with both our bare eyes and with binoculars. Daniel had a pair of very nice 70mm Oberwerk binos, with which I was able to spot the Bode’s galaxies in UMa, and (I’m particularly impressed by this) I could detect the dark rift in the Flame nebula with averted vision (neither the nebula nor the rift were visible in direct vision). We both agreed that the sky was better than what the forecast had suggested: aside from a couple of jet contrails, I could see no trace of the bands of high clouds that had littered the daytime sky.

Around 8:30 pm I walked from the SW lot to the observatory, where I understood that I would find Jeff Crilly. Jeff was there indeed, and he showed me the facilities of the observatory: pads, power outlets, etc.  He also invited me into the observatory, where another astronomer (Phil) had M31 and M31 in the eyepiece of the 30” Challenger telescope. He kindly invited me to take a look, and although the targets weren’t certainly exotic, the brightness and clarity of the image really impressed me. The observatory also had a pair of 80mm binoculars on a parallelogram mount, but even though I tried, I wasn’t able to replicate the Flame nebula observation. Maybe the different magnification (I think Daniel’s binoculars had lower magnification) made a difference; I’m not sure. Jeff also let me look through a 4” Mak trained on Jupiter, and I could assess that seeing was really, really steady – something I had already suspected by looking at the RMS numbers of my guiding error – 0.3”. I seldom see this kind of guiding/seeing at home, and I have never seen anything like that at Pinnacles. I understand the Peak is renowned for this.

After the visit to the observatory, I returned to the SW lot, in time to witness a very bright meteor disintegrating in a trail of debris near the East horizon. Jeff told me the observatory hosts a meteor camera set up for a SETI research project – I hope they got a good view of that one!

Shortly after midnight, after saying hello to the Leo triplet in Daniel’s binos, I packed up and drove back home. I consider the outing very successful: I got to see a new-for-me place, enjoyed great company, better weather than anticipated, and great seeing. My Unihedron SQM measured the sky radiance at 20.55 mag/arcsec2, but the data I collected have a better SNR than what I had collected on the same target in November from Mendoza Ranch (20.40 mag/arcsec2 at the same SQM), better than what the sky radiance difference would suggest.

For the record, this was my imaging target: https://app.astrobin.com/i/f4hr7j – 9 hours of data, almost exactly half from Mendoza, and half from the Peak.

Thanks to Daniel, Jeff, and Phil for making this a great first visit to Fremont Peak! It certainly won't be my last.

Francesco

[Daniel Vancura]

A very nice OR for what turned out to be a surprisingly warm, clear and steady night - it definitely beat my expectations after having seen the forecast! Thank you for sending out the OI and for being great company out there!

[Joel Lee]

Glad to hear it turned out really nice at Fremont Peak! The additional data really helped resolve more faint nebulosity around the baby eagle!

[Jeff Crilly]

Sunday night at the Fremont Peak “pads” turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. The cold has been getting to me lately—the backyard has been dipping into the low-40s, and humidity seems to rocket straight to 85% the moment the Sun gives up. I was in serious need of something warmer and drier to survive the January New Moon.

Fremont Peak delivered. Temps hovered around 56°F with humidity down near 30%. It was so dry I was getting little static-electricity zaps every time I touched the mount or electronics. Thankfully, nothing smoked, rebooted, or burst into flames, so I’ll call that a win.

The sky itself was… fine. Not legendary, not terrible. I wasn’t chasing pristine skies anyway—this session was mostly about getting time on M42, dialing in my NINA workflow, checking camera tilt, and sorting out other small but inevitably annoying details… so I can optimize the short summer nights at truly dark sites.

I also brought along a 102 mm Mak on an AZ-GTi, mainly to keep myself entertained while waiting for M42 photons to trickle into the IMX455 full-frame sensor. That plan worked out nicely. The 4-inch Mak isn’t going to pretend it’s a 6-inch APO, but the views were more than respectable. Jupiter looked good, and when I swung over to M42 I could easily pick out the Trapezium—always a reassuring sight that reminds you the night is, in fact, working. And seeing was quite steady at the FPOA observatory area.

A particular delight of the evening was observing with the Challenger 30-inch. A fellow FPOA member, Phil, had opened up the 30-inch for observing with a friend. Phil kindly invited me over for a variety of observations.

Jupiter and its moons were marching skyward, and the Challenger view under steady skies did not disappoint—bright, stable, and richly detailed, it set the tone for the rest of the night. Phil then aimed the big 30-inch at a series of deep-sky targets well suited to a telescope of that scale. I enjoyed sweeping the Andromeda Galaxy and its companions in the generous field of a 40 mm eyepiece, and also gazing into the luminous heart of Orion, where the Trapezium glimmered amid folds of nebula. Later in the night, Phil placed the Eskimo Nebula in the field—bright with averted vision, its ghostly visage hovering quietly in the darkness.

By around 4–5 a.m., Phil and his friend were still going strong at the eyepiece of the Challenger, while I was doing my best impression of a responsible observer slowly losing a battle with gravity at the desk. Sometime around 5 or 6 a.m., I conceded defeat, parked the telescope, powered everything down, and climbed into the car, where a Therm-a-Rest backpacking mattress provided some very welcome sleep.

I woke around 7:30 a.m. to find that Phil’s car had already departed. Flocks of birds moved from tree to tree, and I took in the quiet view of the green rolling hills to the southeast while sipping a cup of coffee. The temperature climbed quickly—given the Sun warming the FPOA pads—and before long it was well above 70°F.

Teardown followed: breaking everything down, packing the endless bits back into the car, and finishing up by rolling the tarp while wearing gloves and sealing it into a large ziplock to keep any lingering fine dust contained.

On the way out of the park, I stopped at the Madrone Picnic area to take in the view of Monterey Bay and Moss Landing—remarkable weather for January. I then began the descent toward San Juan Bautista, taking it slow to savor the views along San Juan Canyon Road. Traffic from Gilroy back to the Peninsula was light, and I made it home easily before 3 p.m.

After unpacking, stowing the gear, showering, and grabbing dinner, I was in bed by 8 p.m.—and slept for a solid eleven hours.

It was a great single-nighter.

-jeff