[sac-forum] Wednesday Night's Site Evaluations

Last night, Glenn, Peter, Jenn, and myself went on a long round-trip to 
evaluate the sites that are being discussed.  Our goal was to assess the 
local-light situation at the sites.  If you read no further than this sentence, 
I'll say that it was an unanimous conclusion that the "Gas Line" site Steve and 
AJ found at Dobbins and 435th Ave. is superior in all respects.  There were 
zero annoying local lights around the horizon, plenty of room to set up scopes, 
and no passing traffic.  The zenith sky brightness measured by Peter's and my 
Sky Quality meters ranged from 21.2 to 21.3.

On the return trip to Phoenix, we reached the I-10/I-17 stack in exactly 1 
hour.  All of this was extremely easy driving, with only three miles 
approaching the site being very smooth dirt road.  Kudos to Steve and AJ!  If I 
had my way, we'd abandon Flat Iron immediately, and start using this site.  
Before the inevitable argument that Hovatter is nearly as close comes up, has 
anybody timed the drive from there to the I-10/I-17 stack for comparison?  I'm 
guessing that it's in the neighborhood of 1:45.

I wish I had as rosy of a report for the site I was partial to.  It is along 
Salome Road, and very easily accessible from I-10.  But as Steve and AJ found 
out, this whole area is just too close, and lights from I-10 and rest 
areas/truck stops ruin the experience.  We found a little nook 33 27.756N, 113 
00.691W in which ironwood and palo verde trees mostly blocked the lights, but 
some lights were still visible.  I would estimate that the savings in time over 
Steve and AJ's site would be about 10 minutes.  Anywhere east or west of this 
site was just too lit up.  It's too bad, as the aesthetic scene of Canopus 
passing over Saddle Mountain was pretty amazing.

As a side note, we approached the good site from the west, as it was a way to 
get around Saddle Mountain.  This entailed driving all the way to Harquahala 
Valley Road past a blazing power substation.  The local lights started being 
blocked by Saddle Mountain about 5 miles to the west of the gas line site.  
Since this was a school/work night, we did not make it to the Dirt Blvd. site.

Coordinates for the site at the gas line are 33 21.863N, 113 01.904W.  But you 
can't miss the white "guard rails" made out of rocks.

Tom

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