G.W. Pad rest of 2006

Consolidated Observing Report: G.W. Helipad

Introduction: the "helicopter landing pad" (so called because it was supposedly cleared by the National Forest Service for helicopter operations) is located in the George Washington National Forest east of New Market, Va. (http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/). Several other members of NOVAC "discovered" this dark sky site (limiting magnitude ~6.4 on a great night) in the early 2000's, then it appeared to fall into disuse as an observing site for a few years. I've made numerous trips to it since 2005; it has one light dome --from Harrisonburg, VA-- that extends ~15 degrees up along the southern horizon, but otherwise is pretty good. In fact, it is located ~35 miles due east of Spruce Knob West Va., reputedly the darkest observing site in the Eastern U.S. and home of the "year round star party" (http://www.novac.com/spruce/). The Pad's main advantage over Spruce Knob to me is accessibility -- at 2 1/4 hours one way drive from my house, it is within range for an overnight observing session (with a nap in the morning before the return drive), whereas Spruce Knob entails 8+ hours of round trip driving and thus virtually requires the investment of an entire (scarce) weekend to make the trip worthwhile.

The biggest drawbacks of the G.W. Pad are the sometimes fierce winds, and the local light intrusion that comes either from underage kids using the site as a drinking/partying site (complete with bonfires), and the hunters who come down to that stretch of road from the hills in the middle of the night in their headlight-adorned pickups and SUV's because it has the only cell phone coverage within miles. Both can ruin your night vision in a hurry, though conversely they can offer some "unusual" opportunities for public outreach and viewing.

The following are expanded versions of the observing reports I posted on our Club's mailing list.

22 October

Last night fellow NOVAC member John Harris and I pulled an "all-nighter" at the George Washington Forest helicopter pad. I planned to get there well before dark and set up anti-headlight tarps, but stupidly pulled a wire out of my tracking system while packing the 24" Dob, and ended up having to pull the scope apart (removing the 70 lb primary mirror) to fix it. By having a 'lead foot' on Interstate 81 I still managed to get there before dark (1845), and had the scope set up, cooled, and collimated in time for some spectacular views of Comet Swan.

The seeing throughout the evening was average or below, but the transparency was very good-- John estimated Limiting Magnitude at 6.3 around midnight, and I think it improved a bit later on. There was ZERO dew-- unusual for this site-- due perhaps to the light and variable winds. It was a perfect evening for picking off Deep Sky Objects. John-- with his TEC 140-- and me with my 24" f/4 Dob both opted to star hop rather than use setting circles, so we didn't shoot for anything particularly obscure. The high point of the evening for me was getting my best view *ever* of the Veil Nebula. With an O-III filter in the Nagler 31, it had a 3-D appearance, and tendrils of nebulosity seemed to writhe around well and between the Eastern and Western arms.

I played around using tracking on my Dob and piggyback mounting my brand new Fuji digital camera. The camera only arrived yesterday, and I hadn't had time to read the fine manual yet, so my success was mixed, but it has better than average low light capability, so I'm optimistic.

The "Bubba factor" was mixed, but not too bad on the whole. One pickup load of teenagers arrived, walked around for a half hour, then left. (This was before John arrived ~2030). They never expressed any curiosity about my scope, came over, or shined a flashlight on it. This was in contrast to the latter vehicular traffic, where for the first time a number of pickups actually drove into the field and circled our scopes-- probably out of curiosity. (Next time I'll bring the caltrops-- or get that 150W green laser I've been eyeing... <g>)

The wind kicked up about 0230, and shortly thereafter I decided to give in to fatigue and take a nap for a couple of hours. Got up and observed again, knocking off some Leo galaxies and revisiting M31, M42, etc. Shortly before 0600, the pristine clear skies filled with clouds in a matter of minutes. Most of the weather forecasts had predicted this anytime from 0300-0700, so I was pretty happy with the outcome.

I saw a fair number of bright Orionid meteors, some with persistent trails. Despite the wind and the mediocre seeing, the dark clear skies made this an outstanding night of observing-- and the temperatures never even dipped to the freezing point! I headed out at 0650, having spent a very satisfying 12 hours scratching my 'observing itch'.

25 November

I can't speak for the retailers of our area, but "Black Friday" certainly lived up to its billing in the night skies of the southwest Virginia mountains. This was one of the most pleasant observing sessions I have had this year, rivaled only by the Winter Star Party last February. There was nary a cloud in the sky, and the transparency was good enough that I could see many individual light sources in Harrisonburg-- which usually is a murky light dome. I would estimate Limiting Magnitude at 6.4+ We had nary a drop of dew or hint of frost, though when I descended the mountain the next morning the temperatures seemed cooler and the fields were heavily frosted. Although we are a week or more past the peak, the Leonid meteor show put in an appearance, with several dozen gracing the skies during the evening.

NOVAC newcomer Ed Butler and Byron have already posted their impressions (on the NOVAC list), so I won't go on at length. I had my 24" f/4 "Brutus" and a recently acquired ST120 refractor that I planned to try out as a rich field scope. Ed, who is looking to purchase his first scope, used my gear tonight, and I I apologize in advance if I've given him unrealistically high expectations. <g> Not many of us probably saw Stephan's Quintet our first night out, or used a Nagler 31-equipped refractor to cruise the Milky Way with a 4.25 degree FOV. Besides star-hopping, I played around some more with my new Fuji digital camera, which goes up to ISO 1600. (Will post some shots and a more detailed observing report on my web site, once it has migrated from one ISP to another this week.)

Dare we hope that we won't have any snow in early December, and thus might eke out one more new moon visit to the G.W. Pad this year? It would make a great Christmas present!

23 December

Given the decent forecast and limited prospects (moon and weather) for the rest of the holiday period, I opted to head out to the G.W. National Forest 'helicopter pad' intending to do a half night of observing and then sleep on site. I opted to bring my 'small' Dob Natasha (homemade premium 16" f/4.5) instead of my stalwart Brutus (24" f/4) since it is faster to load/unload and I'm getting re-acquainted with the 'scope after leaving it idle for a year while I customized Brutus. I also brought along three refractors --70mm Televue Ranger, 80mm generic short tube f/5, and a 120mm f/5 I recently acquired and modified. All three had separate tripods, and I planned to do a 'shoot out' to post on my web site over the holidays.

I arrived at the site at the tail end of astronomical twilight, and set up by the light of the waxing crescent moon. The winds were ferocious, gusting up to an estimated 40 mph-- enough to blow empty 2" eyepiece bolt cases off of my observing table. The wind made using the Dob problematic, even though it has fairly 'stiff' (Starmaster-style) movement. I can only imagine how my 24" Dob would have fared! The seeing was also decidedly on the mediocre side-- the "E" and "F" stars out of the Trapezium would flicker in and out of visibility. (Clear Sky Clock had forecast below average seeing, so I wasn't surprised nor disappointed, since I'd come for Deep Sky Object work and equipment testing.)

Since using the Dob was problematic, I concentrated on the refractor shootout, doing comparisons of the Pleiades, M-31, M-42, and sections of the Milky Way towards zenith. All three refractors proved their worth and have separate niches in my observing toolkit (more on my web site, when I have the chance to write it up). I was especially heartened to see that the 'extreme modifications' (involving a hacksaw!) I did to the ST120 and the re-greasing of my EQ-5 equatorial mount produced a noticeably better viewing experience than I'd had through the scope from the Pad in Nov. using a lighter mount. Although it may be incongruous to take a $300 scope and stick $900 worth of eyepiece (Nagler 31) and diagonal (Astrophysics Maxbright) on it, having a 4.25 degree field of view with this much light grasp gave me a view of M-31 that I've never seen outside of digital images.

Most unusually, there were absolutely no cars driving by the site during the first two hours of my sojourn, which left me congratulating myself for thinking that picking Xmas weekend was a good way to keep the hunter traffic down. (As an aside, I was struck by the profusion of Christmas lights on houses/trailers on the approaches to the site. Even houses set back in the woods-- where you could barely see them-- were festooned!) Around 2030 another NOVAC member, David (didn't get his last name) from Reston showed up with his parents and his ETX 125 for an hour or so of observing. (Evidently his parents live near there, so this was a quick jaunt up the mountain for them.)

Then the "Bubba factor", the curse of this site, re-emerged. Two SUV's pulled up, headlights glaring, and a couple of newlyweds and associated wedding party members announced their intention to camp on the site. They said they weren't planning to have a campfire and planned an early night, but the headlights, Coleman lanterns and boisterous voices were enough to bring serious observing on my part to a screeching halt. When they were still on their feet and moving around with lanterns aloft after an hour or so, I decided to break down the 'scopes and head back to Northern Virginia. All in all, one of the less productive sessions I have had at the Pad (4 1/2 hours of driving, for a comparable amount of observing time) but certainly not a total write off.

Happy holidays to all, and may we be blessed with lots of clear skies for 2007.

	G.W. National Forest: Three more New Moon 2006 sessions

	*Consolidated Observing Report: G.W. Helipad* Introduction: the "helicopter landing pad" (so called because it was supposedly cleared by the National Forest Service for helicopter operations) is located in the George Washington National Forest east of New Market, Va. (http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/). Several other members of NOVAC "discovered" this dark sky site (limiting magnitude ~6.4 on a great night) in the early 2000's, then it appeared to fall into disuse as an observing site for a few years. I've made numerous trips to it since 2005; it has one light dome --from Harrisonburg, VA-- that extends ~15 degrees up along the southern horizon, but otherwise is pretty good. In fact, it is located ~35 miles due east of Spruce Knob West Va., reputedly the darkest observing site in the Eastern U.S. and home of the "year round star party" (http://www.novac.com/spruce/). The Pad's main advantage over Spruce Knob to me is accessibility -- at 2 1/4 hours one way drive from my house, it is within range for an overnight observing session (with a nap in the morning before the return drive), whereas Spruce Knob entails 8+ hours of round trip driving and thus virtually requires the investment of an entire (scarce) weekend to make the trip worthwhile. The biggest drawbacks of the G.W. Pad are the sometimes fierce winds, and the local light intrusion that comes either from underage kids using the site as a drinking/partying site (complete with bonfires), and the hunters who come down to that stretch of road from the hills in the middle of the night in their headlight-adorned pickups and SUV's because it has the only cell phone coverage within miles. Both can ruin your night vision in a hurry, though conversely they can offer some "unusual" opportunities for public outreach and viewing. The following are expanded versions of the observing reports I posted on our Club's mailing list. *22 October* Last night fellow NOVAC member John Harris and I pulled an "all-nighter" at the George Washington Forest helicopter pad. I planned to get there well before dark and set up anti-headlight tarps, but stupidly pulled a wire out of my tracking system while packing the 24" Dob, and ended up having to pull the scope apart (removing the 70 lb primary mirror) to fix it. By having a 'lead foot' on Interstate 81 I still managed to get there before dark (1845), and had the scope set up, cooled, and collimated in time for some spectacular views of Comet Swan. The seeing throughout the evening was average or below, but the transparency was very good-- John estimated Limiting Magnitude at 6.3 around midnight, and I think it improved a bit later on. There was ZERO dew-- unusual for this site-- due perhaps to the light and variable winds. It was a perfect evening for picking off Deep Sky Objects. John-- with his TEC 140-- and me with my 24" f/4 Dob both opted to star hop rather than use setting circles, so we didn't shoot for anything particularly obscure. The high point of the evening for me was getting my best view ever of the Veil Nebula. With an O-III filter in the Nagler 31, it had a 3-D appearance, and tendrils of nebulosity seemed to writhe around well and between the Eastern and Western arms. I played around using tracking on my Dob and piggyback mounting my brand new Fuji digital camera. The camera only arrived yesterday, and I hadn't had time to read the fine manual yet, so my success was mixed, but it has better than average low light capability, so I'm optimistic. The "Bubba factor" was mixed, but not too bad on the whole. One pickup load of teenagers arrived, walked around for a half hour, then left. (This was before John arrived ~2030). They never expressed any curiosity about my scope, came over, or shined a flashlight on it. This was in contrast to the latter vehicular traffic, where for the first time a number of pickups actually drove into the field and circled our scopes-- probably out of curiosity. (Next time I'll bring the caltrops-- or get that 150W green laser I've been eyeing... <g>) The wind kicked up about 0230, and shortly thereafter I decided to give in to fatigue and take a nap for a couple of hours. Got up and observed again, knocking off some Leo galaxies and revisiting M31, M42, etc. Shortly before 0600, the pristine clear skies filled with clouds in a matter of minutes. Most of the weather forecasts had predicted this anytime from 0300-0700, so I was pretty happy with the outcome. I saw a fair number of bright Orionid meteors, some with persistent trails. Despite the wind and the mediocre seeing, the dark clear skies made this an outstanding night of observing-- and the temperatures never even dipped to the freezing point! I headed out at 0650, having spent a very satisfying 12 hours scratching my 'observing itch'. *25 November* I can't speak for the retailers of our area, but "Black Friday" certainly lived up to its billing in the night skies of the southwest Virginia mountains. This was one of the most pleasant observing sessions I have had this year, rivaled only by the Winter Star Party last February. There was nary a cloud in the sky, and the transparency was good enough that I could see many individual light sources in Harrisonburg-- which usually is a murky light dome. I would estimate Limiting Magnitude at 6.4+ We had nary a drop of dew or hint of frost, though when I descended the mountain the next morning the temperatures seemed cooler and the fields were heavily frosted. Although we are a week or more past the peak, the Leonid meteor show put in an appearance, with several dozen gracing the skies during the evening. NOVAC newcomer Ed Butler and Byron have already posted their impressions (on the NOVAC list), so I won't go on at length. I had my 24" f/4 "Brutus" and a recently acquired ST120 refractor that I planned to try out as a rich field scope. Ed, who is looking to purchase his first scope, used my gear tonight, and I I apologize in advance if I've given him unrealistically high expectations. <g> Not many of us probably saw Stephan's Quintet our first night out, or used a Nagler 31-equipped refractor to cruise the Milky Way with a 4.25 degree FOV. Besides star-hopping, I played around some more with my new Fuji digital camera, which goes up to ISO 1600. (Will post some shots and a more detailed observing report on my web site, once it has migrated from one ISP to another this week.) Dare we hope that we won't have any snow in early December, and thus might eke out one more new moon visit to the G.W. Pad this year? It would make a great Christmas present! *23 December* Given the decent forecast and limited prospects (moon and weather) for the rest of the holiday period, I opted to head out to the G.W. National Forest 'helicopter pad' intending to do a half night of observing and then sleep on site. I opted to bring my 'small' Dob Natasha (homemade premium 16" f/4.5) instead of my stalwart Brutus (24" f/4) since it is faster to load/unload and I'm getting re-acquainted with the 'scope after leaving it idle for a year while I customized Brutus. I also brought along three refractors --70mm Televue Ranger, 80mm generic short tube f/5, and a 120mm f/5 I recently acquired and modified. All three had separate tripods, and I planned to do a 'shoot out' to post on my web site over the holidays. I arrived at the site at the tail end of astronomical twilight, and set up by the light of the waxing crescent moon. The winds were ferocious, gusting up to an estimated 40 mph-- enough to blow empty 2" eyepiece bolt cases off of my observing table. The wind made using the Dob problematic, even though it has fairly 'stiff' (Starmaster-style) movement. I can only imagine how my 24" Dob would have fared! The seeing was also decidedly on the mediocre side-- the "E" and "F" stars out of the Trapezium would flicker in and out of visibility. (Clear Sky Clock had forecast below average seeing, so I wasn't surprised nor disappointed, since I'd come for Deep Sky Object work and equipment testing.) Since using the Dob was problematic, I concentrated on the refractor shootout, doing comparisons of the Pleiades, M-31, M-42, and sections of the Milky Way towards zenith. All three refractors proved their worth and have separate niches in my observing toolkit (more on my web site, when I have the chance to write it up). I was especially heartened to see that the 'extreme modifications' (involving a hacksaw!) I did to the ST120 and the re-greasing of my EQ-5 equatorial mount produced a noticeably better viewing experience than I'd had through the scope from the Pad in Nov. using a lighter mount. Although it may be incongruous to take a $300 scope and stick $900 worth of eyepiece (Nagler 31) and diagonal (Astrophysics Maxbright) on it, having a 4.25 degree field of view with this much light grasp gave me a view of M-31 that I've never seen outside of digital images. Most unusually, there were absolutely no cars driving by the site during the first two hours of my sojourn, which left me congratulating myself for thinking that picking Xmas weekend was a good way to keep the hunter traffic down. (As an aside, I was struck by the profusion of Christmas lights on houses/trailers on the approaches to the site. Even houses set back in the woods-- where you could barely see them-- were festooned!) Around 2030 another NOVAC member, David (didn't get his last name) from Reston showed up with his parents and his ETX 125 for an hour or so of observing. (Evidently his parents live near there, so this was a quick jaunt up the mountain for them.) Then the "Bubba factor", the curse of this site, re-emerged. Two SUV's pulled up, headlights glaring, and a couple of newlyweds and associated wedding party members announced their intention to camp on the site. They said they weren't planning to have a campfire and planned an early night, but the headlights, Coleman lanterns and boisterous voices were enough to bring serious observing on my part to a screeching halt. When they were still on their feet and moving around with lanterns aloft after an hour or so, I decided to break down the 'scopes and head back to Northern Virginia. All in all, one of the less productive sessions I have had at the Pad (4 1/2 hours of driving, for a comparable amount of observing time) but certainly not a total write off. Happy holidays to all, and may we be blessed with lots of clear skies for 2007.	A view of the G.W. site I took in 2003 Sunrise on 26 Nov. I decided to photograph Brutus in the early morning light, then noticed a spot of red serendipitously framed between the truss tubes. Moving closer, I saw the flower above. It looked like a botanical anomaly -- petals like a carnation, but on a rose-type thorn bush. This was the only bloom in sight. Closer inspection revealed the truth of the matter-- someone had taken a silk carnation, and wrapped its wire stem around a briar bush! These two shots are tough to see... they are self-timer night shots of me with the Dob (shot at ISO 1600 speed) A star field shots (again, the thumbnail does not do them justice...) Star fields against the trees "In the dawn's early light"