Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

You can't camp on the parking lot atop Mt Pinos. If you have a scope and a wilderness parking pass(available from a sporting goods store or the forest service)the rangers will probably leave you alone. There is camping with tents permitted around the adjacent meadow with fire pits and picknic benches but you can't park in that area: you have to carry your stuff in and out.
The roads are probably open to the parking lot atop Mt Pinos but call the forest service before you go to be sure roads are open and ask if chains are required. Saturdays are probably packed with people playing in the snow and you may not be able to get to the parking lot so plan ahead.
Finally, the northbound lanes at Templin highway were again reduced to two lanes today from storm damage and traffic may be very heavy at this point.

Anybody planning to go to Pinos on Saturday June 4th be advised: Mountain search and rescue is looking for someone who got lost with lights, helicopters, and off-terrain vehicles.
Friday night was a zoo up there with a million scopes and mountain search and rescue. I left early at 10:30pm after managing a few good views of Jupiter and some glimpses of DSOs amid the lights and mayhem.

Grandview might be the better choice given it's lower elevation and better oxygen content. It's also a site covered by the clear sky clock. When are you considering a star party at the site?

FYI: Although the clear sky clock predicted clear viewing at Pinos on 7-21-06, the weather service predicted a 30% chance of thunderstorms on 7-21 and again today, 7-22. The weather service was correct on 7-21 and the clock belatedly changed itself to reflect reality. I was at Pinos on Friday at 4:00pm and it was raining heavily with hail-stones covering the road. I left because I didn't want to risk damage to the paint of my vehicle. I'm glad I have electronic stability control on my vehicle or I might have spun-out during the decent on a thickly covered road of hail. The clock is again predicting clear conditions tonight but the weather service is going with the same 30% chance of thunderstorms. It's your risk if you're planning to go.

The road to Mt Pinos remains closed due to the Day Fire. Although the fire was 100% contained last week, the forest service will not make a decision on reopening the road until Thursday October 12.
Let's hope it will reopen soon so we can get in some observing time over the next few weeks

The forest service states the road to Mt Pinos remains closed because the decision to re-open "must come from Washington". :S
The forest service had previously stated the decision was to be made last Thursday, October 12 but now it's delayed until next week. They "hope" it will be open next weekend.

Last night at Pinos(Saturday Oct 21) was awesome!
The road was re-opened by the forest service on the preceding day, just in time for the Orion meteor shower.
There was only one other amateur up there when I arrived in the afternoon but, by nightfall, at least 30 other scopes filled the parking lot.
It was refractor city up there with TAK APOs dominating the group. Several TAKs and two TMBs were represented in the 5" and 6" sizes, with several on massive mounts.
Despite the arrival of the hunting season, no disruptive effects occurred during the night although a couple of hikers managed to get themselves lost on a cliff but they were spotted by a search and rescue helicopter before nightfall and were rescued.
There was traffic from people coming to view the Orion meteor shower but they left after midnight and things calmed down.
Now to the good stuff: transparency and seing were great with no wind and a temperature of 32 degrees F. The most spectacular object of the evening had to be NGC 253 in Sculptor. It was incredible! It filled the eyepiece of my 65 AFOV pentax xl 10.5mm eyepiece in my 16" dob, from one edge of the field to the other. One of the TAK observers viewed it through my scope and couldn't believe it. This galaxy has to be seen to believed. It's said to be the apparent size of the full moon in the sky and it's immense: even though it's 11,000 light years away, it was reported by a TAK observer to be 80,000 light years in diameter and Astronomy magazine claims it can be seen visually at a dark site when it's riding high in the sky at a magnitude of 7.6!
I viewed a host of other galaxies in Perseus, Pegasus and Aries. Finally, Oren Soffer and Richard Spina invited me to view the blue snowball planetary in their 17" F 4.1 DOB at, get this, 1800 power. That's not a misprint, Oren used a 2.3mm eyepiece with a powermate and achieved a phenomenal amount of magnification and the object took it!
Both Oren and Richard shared great views of the horsehead nebula while I also observed Stephan's Quintet with the dimmest member at 15 magnitude being easy prey in my 16" dob.
I'm thinking of going up again during the week...

I just had to go back to Pinos last night. I was solo Pinos!
Conditions were great with subdued light to the north from Bakersfield and to the south from Los Angeles. It made for a dark sky with no distractions for viewing multiple galaxies in Perseus, Pisces, Aries, Andromeda, and Pegasus. Sculptor rose high enough in the Southwestern sky to reveal more of its galaxies with NCG 253 being phenomenal at midnight.
Seeing conditions were also good with Uranus being a well-defined disc at high power.
Since the horizons were relatively free of light pollution, I could view objects in Aqaurius at a very low angle with the Saturn nebula taking high power with my 16" scope nearly horizontal! Ditto for Gemini and the Eskimo nebula at midnight.
I seemed to view more objects than on a crowded weekend at Pinos. No light light pollution, no crowds, no distractions and an 8300 ft mountain top for exclusive views!
A star party of one...

Hi Robert,
I'm considering Friday but I'm waiting on weather reports (winds) and the clear sky clock forecast.
I'll probably go up there during early next week as well, Monday or Tuesday, depending on conditions.

Hi Robert,
I'm planning on being there on Friday. The weather forecasts do seem to be showing decreasing winds in the area by Friday so it appears to be the best bet for the week.
I hope to see you and Linton up there on Friday.