[AZ-Observing] The 35th Annual RTMC

I finally made it to the RTMC!

The prime real estate had already been homesteaded with scopes by the time
we reached our 360 mile destination on Saturday at 7 p.m. (1900 Telrad).
But there were plenty of vacancies on the less desirable outskirts and we
were able to set up a little camp with enough time to catch the Big Bang
Band in the main hall.  Funny astronomy songs sung to known tunes like
Betelgeuse sung to Edelweiss and ending with this verse: "Betelgeuse,
Betelgeuse, you'll soon go supernova. When you burst, we'll be first among
those looking you over."

Judging from the 1,600 + adult raffle tickets, and the packed fields, rows,
and alleys, I would estimate more than 700 telescopes with Arizona  well
represented among a great majority of Californians. Children were welcomed
and entertained into thinking the event was made for especially for them.
An interviewed 9 year old said he has been attending the RTMC his entire
life!

The majority of the talks were related to building an observatory, including
a Saturday afternoon talk from our Chris Schur entitled "An Arizona
Observatory for a Schmidt Camera".

We had the life of amateur astronomer Riley for two days with everything
accessible and convenient--food & showers, horseback riding & canoeing, and
plenty of stuff to spend astronomy dollars on.

I noted an interesting difference between the Arizonans being keenly aware
it wasn't a dark sky and not even setting up a scope and many Californians
diligently taking the opportunity to work on observing projects in the
middle of wonderful chaos, accidental white light every too often and a sky
that at the darkest point on the zenith was at best a medium gray--not the
inky blackness of our Vekol, Sentinel, Cherry Rd., or even our more urban
3rd quarter sites.  We are spoiled and urgently need to figure how to remain
that way.

We observed through many sizes and styles of scopes, binoculars,
binoviewers on scopes, and true binocular scopes.  My most notable view of
the evening was the great detail of M51 through Tom Osypowski's 24", a scope
we kept returning to not only for the great views attainable on  a less than
great sky, and the fluency of  telescope operation, but for the wonderful
conversation. We also viewed the Ring Nebula at 600x noting the central star
and a filamentous detail within the ring.

And next year I'm arriving early enough to set my tent and scope smack dab
in the middle of that wonderful tangled confusion of ladder dobs & coffee
grinders,  just to soak it in with all my senses.  Can you imagine laying in
your tent and overhearing this favorite of the evening's conversations:
"Check out this view, it will knock your head clean off."  "Yup, leaving
nothing but a bloody stump!"  with the exuberance of Steve Coe speaking of a
"10" night.

I hope Rick Rotrammel got a photo of that guy! 






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