- Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the “painter’s easel”). Normally represented as an easel, Pictor was named by Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. The constellation’s brightest star is Alpha Pictoris, a white main-sequence star around 97 light-years away from Earth. Pictor also hosts RR Pictoris, a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova, reaching apparent (visual) magnitude 1.2 in 1925 before fading into obscurity.
- Oyster Dome (wa100.dnr.wa.gov)
Take an invigorating hike up Blanchard Mountain, located south of Lake Samish, to the geologic treasure known as Oyster Dome—a rounded, rocky promontory with spectacular views of the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Mountains. Oyster dome is located in the 4,500-acre Blanchard State Forest, the only place in Washington where the Cascade Mountains meet the Salish Sea.
