Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 4, Starry Nights
- Jun 26
- 3 min read
The night sky did not disappoint! Great Basin is one of the Dark Sky Sanctuaries in the US as discussed in Part 1
We had 3 of 4 clear nights. As I also mentioned earlier, the Milky was a little obscured to the south due to the terrain so I chose a target in the northern section. The above image was taken with the equipment shown below. This is a single 5 minute exposure, raw image uncalibrated. Unfortunately my ability to fully process astronomical images is limited on the road. It would take too long to do on a trip , so I save that for when we get back.
NGC 7023 (NGC or The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (abbreviated NGC) is an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888)
The Iris Nebula (also known as NGC 7023 or Caldwell 4) is a bright reflection nebula located about 1,300 light years from Earth in the constellation of Cepheus. It is six light-years across.
Forgot to mention that while my equipment is firing away, I am typically observing the Milky Way and associated objects with a pair of 16 x 70 binoculars!
The above image shows what I use on our trips for portable telescope gear. Included are an FSQ106-N refractor telescope, QHY 268C camera, Moonlite 35WR nightcrawler focuser-rotator and ZWO 174M guide camera. The mount is probably the original harmonic drive mount, a Rainbow Astro 135E with a single RA axis encoder.
The mount sits on a Gitzo tripod. in the center underneath the mount I have a hook to hold a bag of around 20 pounds of counterweight. The mount is powered by 15volts from a lithium battery I put in the bag. The computer, mounted on the telescope is an Intel Nuc and I also use a Pegasus Ultimate Powerbox V2 to supply power to the camera and focuser. I do need a Jackery lithium battery for AC power to the computer and Pegasus box. I will probably have a separate page discussing all this :)
So that concludes our 4-night stay at Great Basin National Park. Overall it was really great, especially for me! I got to fish during the day and image/ observe at night. We did get to see a small portion of the Lehman Cave tour due to the renovations ongoing. We took a few hikes around the campground but when the sun was out it was quite hot so did not want to walk the mile or two up to the trailhead.
Great Basin National Park breakdown:
What we liked:
Baker Creek is in a good location just a couple of miles from the visitor center. The campsites are decent size and fairly private. You are within easy walking distance to Baker Creek. There is potable water nearby if you need that. There is also water refill and dump stations for your RV near the park entrance.
The campgrounds were quiet and people generally respectful for night sky observing. For best views look at campsites in the lower loop. We were in #28 which was great. #37 was also really good. I don't know about the other campgrounds e.g Upper and Lower Lehman and Wheeler Peak because we were limited with our size vehicle. Remember you can reserve these sites online 24 hours prior to your arrival if you don't want to just show up and take your chances.
What we didn't like:
There wasn't really much we didn't like there. It would have been nice to be able to see Wheeler Peak but the vehicle limit is 24 feet long so we were 2 feet over. The trail head at Baker Creek was a little far and the only way to make it work was to leave basically at dawn. Since I wanted to fish at dawn we had to pass on that.
Overall a great spot and I can see us returning at some point. If we had gravel bikes we would have been able to do some biking so we'll keep that in mind for next time!
Thanks for reading!
DrDave
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