I was disappointed with our Van Vleck adventure this year. In previous years, we've generally had four completely clear and usable nights out of 5 or 6 nights. I've become more ambitious, desiring to bring out more subtle and wispy details in any particular target; but this means that I need to spend multiple nights on one target. Unless I've collected a couple nights already on a target, two nights amounts to only 10-20 usable frames. I'm trying to collect at least 60-70 frames per target.
Because of the poor weather at Van Vleck, I decided to look for a place to get in a couple more nights of data in August. Initially, I considered Mt Pinos in southern California. But as I searched further for darker places, I came across Grandview Campground, near the Bristlecone Pine Forest park, in the Inyo National Forest. At around 8500 ft, it would be higher than Pinos and the fact that it was in California meant it should be out of the monsoon flow that shoots out of Mexico and into the desert southwest.
During my search, I came across a web page for a high-altitude star party at Barcroft. At 12,500 ft, it sounded like an incredible event. AND it had power! This is important since my possible trips to Pinos or Grandview would require that I run a generator at least 6 hours to completely recharge batteries. So after some emails, I joined the East Bay Astronomy Club, and registered for the high-altitude star party.
As per the webpage for the event, I decided to spend one night at Grandview to help acclimatize myself to the altitude. The drive to Grandview is about 9 hours from Flagstaff. And even though that's only 3 hours less than driving to Van Vleck, it felt considerably easier.
A dust storm somewhere between Nevada and California. (Click the pic to enlarge it.)
Here's White Mountain Road which splits off from Highway 168.
The entrance to Grandview Campground.
It's hard to tell from this perspective, but the campground was absolutely full. I drove around the campground about three times trying to find a spot.
Finally, a lady came out of a campsite and mentioned that their large group had reserved two campsites and that I could possibly take the one next to theirs. What a coup!
This is a picture of site 17, facing north. All of the camp sites on the north slope up. It's worth noting how close the tent on site 16 sits next to the site (left side of picture). If you're planning to do astronomy here, you need to have a few buddies out here to take up adjacent sites.
Here's a view from the opposite side to show my truck and the southern camp sites.
Here's a picture taken a little while later looking east from the front of my truck. The eastern horizon drops off into a scenic valley that reminds me of Death Valley. But of course, I didn't take a picture. There is parking area up to the right side, but I was told that it gets really windy for astronomy purposes.
Here's a picture looking across the field. At night, this view would be dominated by two camp fires that burned until around 11 PM. The Milky Way dominates the middle of this perspective from about 10 PM until 1 AM. For some reason, there were idiots from the southern side wandering that middle brushy area until midnight. They had bright flashlights and they would shine them on people. :(
Just to round out the images, here's a view of the west. You can spot a small dusty area in the center that corresponds to a rough road that leads to an abandoned mining area. There were a couple of "unofficial" sites on that road, but they were taken when I checked them out. Also, you wouldn't want to be on that road with your astronomy equipment as every vehicle brought up a dust storm every time they drove by. The main dirt road curves to to the right, past a pit toilet, then either curves left back to the southern camp site or splits off further right to an overflow camping area. The overflow area has around a dozen sites, but they are heavily treed and close together.
Here's a crude drawing of the campground that might help future astronomy-oriented visitors pick a site.
Besides the aforementioned two camp fires and the idiots walking around with bright LED flashlights, it was actually a very good location. From my discussions with a number of campers, the site was unusually busy due to the Perseid meteor shower. I saw about 5-6 camp sites with telescopes. And I discovered that the two sites (I think there are two sites) to my west were occupied by astronomers. So, that was a nice surprise.
SQM readings came in between 21.55 and 21.7.
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