Orrin of Lassen: looking at the sky

The past couple of months i've been tracking the movements of Uranus, Neptune, and the large asteroid Pallas. Using the software CARTES DU CIEL (sky maps) to locate the planets. Uranus and Neptune move fairly slowly, so it's easy to track them from day to day and week to week. Pallas, on the other hand, is much closer to the Sun and to us -- its orbit lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It's a faint 9th-magnitude object, so you really have to keep up with it, with the aid of the sky maps. By now i've lost it again and will have to wait until the next dark, moon-free, clear, night to look for it again.

Other than that, two weeks ago my camp was visited by a 300-pound black bear, actually a beautiful brown in color. As I arrived, it had apparently eaten about three loaves of my bread that were hanging up -- not high enough -- in the huge juniper under which i camp.

A couple of shots in the air with my 20-gauge only made it run away about 20 yards. After maybe 10 minutes of stand-off, i decided i didn't want to go to sleep with this animal in the vicinity. I aimed for the bear. The first shot missed; i saw a puff of dirt in front of the bear. The second shot must have hit him good, because he abruptly wheeled around and took off at high speed. After a minute or so i took off after him, to see where he'd go, but 15 minutes of searching yielded nothing. I suppose that's good news. Haven't seen him since, but now i sleep with a loaded shotgun at my bedside.