July Travel

Posted by Josh Walawender on Mon 30 August 2021

I did something unusual for me this July: astronomy related travel! Living in Hawaii, I don't typically get to go to many star parties. On this trip, I attended the Stellarvue Dark Sky Star Party (SVDSSP) in Northern California.

The SVDSSP is a private star party I've been to a number of times in the past. I enjoy going to visit with my mainland astronomy friends and to spend several days away from work. It is interesting to do a star party without being able to take much gear. In fact, I typically don't bring a telescope to this event and instead I depended on getting to look through other people's telescopes.

I really miss the social aspect of star parties. The multi-night nature lets you meet and talk to other attendees in a way you don't get for a simple evening stargazing session where everyone packs up and goes home afterward. There are no multi-night star parties here on the Big Island. None of our observing sites permit camping, so we have no place to hold such an event. In addition, one of the great things about star parties is that you draw attendees from all around, but again the island limits that sort of travel.

The skies up where SVDSSP is held are very dark, but at 41 degrees North latitude, I'm always a bit dismayed at how low all the southern constellations are and how late the twilight lasts.

The star parts got very lucky with the fires in California this year. Even though there were a number of them burning in the state, the smoke stayed away from our location. There was only a brief period of partial cloudiness, so the weather cooperated as well.

After the star party, I spent the next 10 days in the Lassen-Shasta area of Northern California. Lassen National Park is one of my favorite places to hike and I was able to see some new areas even after having been there many times before. On our last day in the area, a wildfire south of the park was expanding. We were worried our route south would be closed, but even though we drove through some heavy smoke, the roads we needed were open and we made it out.

Fire on the horizon seen from an overlook in Lassen National Park.

Fire on the horizon seen from an overlook in Lassen National Park.

Sadly, this fire blew up in the coming days and weeks. The "Dixie" fire destroyed a small town which we drove through on our way out and eventually made its way to the National Park. Based on the fire maps I've seen, it looks like many of the hikes we did on this trip have burned. I imagine that the park will be very different on future visits.

Approaching the smoke from the Dixie fire.

Approaching the smoke from the Dixie fire.