Jonah and I went to the Pine Mountain Observatory last Friday evening for one of their summer season star gazing events and it was just incredible. Jonah has been into astronomy for a long time so this was a treat for us to do together. The next night we went to the Eugene Astronomy Society’s annual Star Party which was also fun and quite different (think: more people, more telescopes, longer lines, but still great). Photos below.

These are two of the observatory domes that house telescopes. We were there well before dark, so we had a chance to look around, plus see a fantastic sunset over the Sisters Mountains to our west.

From the top of Pine Mountain, which sits at 6300 feet above sea level. Once the sun went down so did the temperatures.

The peak on the right is North Sister, then Middle Sister and then South Sister. Info can be found at the Travel Oregon site.

Sunset

Turn your phone 90 degrees, choose “Panorama,” and move it from the earth to the sky and you get this. h/t to Jonah for showing me this approach.

After dark, looking back up the hill towards the observatory domes the red lights help you see without ruining your night vision.

Completely unrelated: three generations had these three items on their person at one point. The Elgin pocket watch was my great-grandfather’s when he worked the Southern Pacific railroad in Roseburg, Oregon. The J.P. Patches button is a button my father had on a red baseball hat that I remember for years and years. J.P. Patches was the local clown morning kid show on television when I was growing up, and would watch it almost daily. The pin that says Pink Floyd is one I wore on my jeans jacket in the early ’80s when I was in high school and was an up-and-coming rock and roll guitar player. 🙂 Each of these has its own story, and the fact that the generations each carried these objects is what helped me place them together.

Dexter Reservoir

Water leaving the reservoir, heading west as the sun sets.