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.
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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.
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From the top of Pine Mountain, which sits at 6300 feet above sea level. Once the sun went down so did the temperatures.
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The peak on the right is North Sister, then Middle Sister and then South Sister. Info can be found at the Travel Oregon site.
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Sunset
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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.
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After dark, looking back up the hill towards the observatory domes the red lights help you see without ruining your night vision.
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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.
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Dexter Reservoir
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Water leaving the reservoir, heading west as the sun sets.