Last Saturday was my annual trek to Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic National
Park with my astronomy class. Thursday and Friday were very iffy in Redding with
lots of cloud cover. At times I could only see the base of Lassen. Like the
Weather Service forecast, it started to clear in the morning. The inversion
layer with scattered clouds was several thousand feet above Lassen's peak, but I
set out with 8 students and a friend at 1:00 PM and arrived at Bumpass Hell
around 2:30. We all enjoyed a beautiful hike to the mudpots and back, ate cold
dinners and started the Ibarra hot chocolate (made with whole milk and a pinch
of chili powder) near sunset.

About 30 minutes before sunset the western half of the sky was solid clouds and
about 20% of the rest of the sky. Almost miraculously, the whole sky was clear
by sunset! The school has a Meade 8" LX-200 (very old school with 18V power) and
an 8" LX-90. I set them up ready for alignment.

In the gloaming we were able to track Jupiter. Venus was barely visible, and
Mercury was below the horizon. (Brokeoff Mountain raises the western horizon by
about 5 degrees.) By then it was getting cold and the hot chocolate was ready.
By this time about 15 additional students an friends had arrived for the show.

As it got darker I worked the students through some double stars, Albireo &
Alpha Herc. It turned into a gloriously dark Bumpass night. For the first time I
had a dew problem at Bumpass. Probably because the inversion layer was above us,
there was more humidity than usual. Actually it was a nice meteorological lesson
because earlier in the day you could see the clouds settle against the ceiling.
This caused more of a light dome from Chico than usual, but the sky was
absolutely black to the horizon from NNE to SE.

By about 8:20 it was dark enough to turn the scopes on globulars. M13 was
spectacular against a very dark sky. M4 was in the Chico glow, though. At 8:24
we stopped and were treated to a mag -8 Iridium flare and two minutes later an
ISS pass from SW to NE. We followed the ISS across the whole sky!

Later we saw some of the nebula, Eagle, Swan, Trifid, and open clusters, Wild
Duck, etc., and finished with galaxies M31, 32, 33 & 51. M33 was easy to pick
out against the dark NE sky. About 9:45 most of the students were freezing and
some running laps around the parking lot. I said, "Would anyone want to lay out
blankets and just watch the Milky Way for another hour?" Out of the darkness a
voice said incredulously, "On the cold asphalt?"

We packed up and were rolling by 10:15, and arrived back on campus by midnight.
It was a great night observing!

Michael Huster, Ph. D.
Associate Professor of Science
Simpson University
2211 College View Dr.
Redding, CA 96003