[AZ-Observing] Grand Canyon Star Party - DAY SEVEN - My Turn At The Scope
- From: Skylook123@xxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 13:40:09 -0400 (EDT)
Grand Canyon Star Party - DAY EIGHT - My Turn At The Scope
Location: Grand Canyon Visitor Center, South Rim of Grand Canyon, AZ,
about 340 miles north of home in Tucson, about 7000 ft elevation
Weather: Mid 80s in the afternoon, Low 50s when we quit at Midnight. Clear
skies for afternoon and evening, with light gusts to 25 and high wind
warnings.
Seeing and Transparency: Not perfect, but close to it; great for our
purposes.
Equipment:
18â?? f/5 2286mm Teeter Telescope newtonian truss dob, Sky Commander DSCs
10" Meade SCT on Atlas EQ-G mount
60mm Lunt LS60THa/B600 on Atlas EQ-G Mount
The winds that have been with us for most of the week seem somewhat abated
this morning, although still predicted to be at speeds higher than
reasonable to try to use the 18".
During our review of next year's interesting events at the pot luck, I got
very lucky when Erich Karkoschka, planetary scientist at the Lunar and
Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, corrected three of my
statements about next year. The accurate schedule is that the annular solar
eclipse will be on May 20, 2012 in the late afternoon, the transit of Venus
will
be in the late afternoon of June 5, and the new moon will be on Tuesday,
June 19, during GCSP 2012. I whiffed on three out of three. Must be the
altitude.
After the pot luck in the campground, not much to tell before heading over
to the site at 5:30 PM. When I got there, though, a really scary sight
greeted us. The weather cover that was on the 18" was gone! All week the winds
have been from around the same heading, NNW. The big truss was anchored at
the back by one of the 60 pound ramps, and at the front by a jump start
battery and bungee cords. Sometime during the previous 16 hours, the wind got
under the ScopeCoat and blew it right off! After a bit of searching, I
found the shroud 200 feet away against a fence post, and the bungee cords
scattered around the area and the battery moved about 10 feet away. The
primary
mirror lid was up in the truss poles. I did a quick inspection and the
primary had not been moved from the sling and cell, but the secondary cage had
taken a hit when the weather shroud had escaped. The only effect, though,
was that the secondary cell had been jostled enough to need some TLC on
collimation. No harm.
The parking area we use is blocked off with Astronomer Only signs, but
that didn't stop someone from parking a Miata in a prime setup spot in late
afternoon and leaving the car, despite all of the intervention tried by the
several early astronomers. The two women occupants arrogantly walked off
toward the rim, while the usual astronomers of that area waited for them to
return. And waited, and waited
At 7:45, the Miata was still in place with Park security awaiting the
occupants' return. We heard that the owner later returned - a Park resident -
arrogantly insisting that being a park resident entitled her park anywhere
she wanted. NOT, says park security. Then she said she wanted to leave it
there while she ran some errands! Michael Turner gently informed her of his
need to set up his scope NOW. She grumbled mightily, but she and her friend
drove off and Michael could finally set up in the dusk.
We went down and set up for Dennis Young's night talk, a demonstration of
using film photography to blend the beauty of the local geology with the
wonders of the night sky. Many of his images have comet Hale Bopp highlighted
against Arizona landmarks. Of course it was Night 8 so the slide clicker
wouldn't work, a spare wireless mouse I brought wouldn't work, so I was at
the computer while Dennis narrated his work. Every slide brought gasps and
ooh aahhs from the audience. And as though that was not enough, Dennis gave
away a 5x7 spectacular print of one of his shots, and then a Celestron
FirstScope. He used mathematical combinations of letter positions in the
alphabet to turn the name of the scope into a birth date, and polling the
audience for a match. The first four tries elicited no match in the 260 or so
attendees, then he turned to me and asked me quietly what my birthdate was, and
a little girl in the front row was the winner. What a sweat heart, her eyes
glowing with happiness as she came up to claim her new instrument. The
crowd cheered mightily. Now THAT'S an night that young lady will never forget.
I went out to the scopes, and the wind was calm! Once again, there was 14
year old granddaughter Karina with the 18" on The Ring, and 17 year old
Jessica on Albireo. In fact, some of the astronomers around us have taken to
calling Jessica The Queen of Albireo. Karina was feeling a bit tired after
the late nights and hot days, so she worked at the eyepiece keeping the image
in, while I gave the visitors the planetary nebula story. With great
thanks to Marilyn Unruh, I now end the mini-lesson by talking about the
distribution of stellar ejecta and have any children in line for the nebula
reach
up and grab some air. Then I tell them that they are holding a piece of a
star.
Karina left around 9:30; the 18" is MINE!! A lot of people had been asking
about the supernova in The Whirlpool, so I started an alignment of the
DSCs to go search. The group at my spot wanted to know what was going on, so I
proceeded to narrate my operations to align the Sky Commander. And forgot
to change the star name for the second star. So, as I played magician and
punched in M51, it said it was 40 degrees below the horizon. OOPS. Redo. Got
it right, and holy cow, was that ever a great image of The Whirlpool. The
next hour and a half are a blur of visitors and Oh Wow moments. I am always
stunned at the quality of questions, and pure interest in what they are
seeing. There are not so many visitors that we can't spend some time on galaxy
formation, stellar evolution leading to the supernova, and all other
manner of cosmic physics. And the visitors are so grateful for what we are
doing. I must have heard 15 times last night, "I can't believe all of you are
doing this for us!" We are really hitting the long ball, here.
Some late arrivers were requesting Saturn, so we went over that way. The
wind was starting to make the image buzz, and the planet was snapping into
focus, then mushing way out as the seeing suffered from the wind gusts. With
no visitors in view, Jessica and I take down the two scopes and pack it
all up for the trip home. Quite laborious after the freedom of leaving the
scope in place all week, to the point that those of you who are familiar with
diabetic numbers will understand that my morning blood check was 45.
Truck loaded, many observers' contact lists in hand, back to the room to
crash. Oh well, the granddaughters let me have one night doing what I love
best! But I don't think I've ever been as happy as listening to them in the
dark with their visitors, and the visitors stunned at their expertise and
ease with working with them and guiding them down the path of looking up. All
week, I have not been able to get the smile off my face. While I'll be
glad to get back to Tucson so I can get some scope time for me, I wouldn't
trade a moment of this week and watching these two new astronomers open the
skies for so many people. By the end of the week, their counts are
approaching 1000 contacts for each of them. Last night several visitors said
it made
them so happy in the dark to hear one or the other call "Grandpa", ask a
question, then go back to their visitors. Good thing it was dark; they might
have seen a tear or two.
Thus endeth just about the best week of my life.
Jim O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
Grand Canyon Cell Phone: 520-405-6551
gcsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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